Public Health Advocacy Clinic

Public Health Advocacy Clinic

In the Public Health Advocacy Clinic, students work on real-world projects with attorneys and gain experience using developing litigation or regulatory actions to improve public health. Student projects support the research and drafting needs of the Public Health Advocacy Institute and its Center for Public Health Litigation.

The clinic can include guest lectures focusing on legal approaches to improve public health as well as developing sound public health research methodology. Class time is devoted to gaining a basic understanding of the relevant legal foundations of public health advocacy; effectively communicating to a target audience; and discussing the balance between government intervention to set public health policy and individual responsibility in a variety of contexts such as food, tobacco, alcohol policy, and others.

Student projects have included development of demand letters and complaints under Massachusetts consumer protection law addressing electronic cigarettes; lottery vending machine sales to children; junk food sales in schools; misleading restaurant calorie disclosures; and consideration of high fructose corn syrup as a defective product. Students may develop comments to relevant regulatory agency dockets or complaints to federal agencies. The goal of the clinic is for each student project to initiate or contribute meaningfully to public health advocacy in the field.