This is a new project to make public health information available to public health practitioners, their
lawyers, and the general public. It is being continually updated.
Public health is unique among medical specialties in being defined by law rather than physiology.
While there are many public health practices that benefit affected individuals, the core of public
health practice is coercive action under state authority, the police power. In the best of
circumstances, this authority may be needed only to encourage educational efforts. At other times,
however, public health authorities must seize property, close businesses, destroy animals, or
involuntarily treat or even lock away individuals.
Such powers are rooted in earlier times, when the fear of pestilential disease was both powerful and
well founded. In a contemporary society dominated by concern with individual rights, such
draconian powers may seem unnecessary or even unconstitutional. Many public health personnel
believe that the rationale for such laws is past and that public health practitioners should restrict
themselves to education and empowerment. Others, looking at the resurgence of tuberculosis and
an increasing inability to treat other bacterial diseases, believe that the end of the antimicrobial era
is near and that traditional public health restrictions will have to be employed, requiring the sacrifice
of individual rights for the common good.
Understanding public health law is critical to public health practice. We hope that this site will aid
in that objective.
Edward P. Richards
Director, Program in Law, Science, and Public Health
Harvey A. Peltier Professor of Law
Louisiana State University Law Center
richards@lsu.edu
For more information, see:
