Incorporating values and ethics in public health law education

By its nature, public health law is an interdisciplinary practice, yet public health law is often taught in disciplinary silos, with law and public health students taking separate courses at their respective schools. The Carnegie Report outlines a framework for enhancing legal education and preparing students for practice that includes core competencies in the areas of knowledge, skills, and values. Using the Carnegie framework, this panel, moderated by Charity Scott, Professor at Georgia State University College of Law, is targeted to an audience of faculty who teach public health law in different disciplinary schools, practitioners who supervise students, and others involved with public health and legal education. It will examine innovative methods, benefits, and challenges of teaching public health law in an interdisciplinary manner. Undertaking and justifying particular public health activities and policies, such as an immunization requirement or a tax on sugar beverages, takes place within a particular political-legal context that both influences and reflects society's understandings at any point in time about what constitutes the common good, how we think about individual rights and responsibilities, and our notions of collective responsibility and fairness – ideas at the heart of our public philosophy and political values. Interdisciplinary education is key in helping public health professionals to mediate the many underlying tensions in our values. Using real cases from public health practice and law provides active, engaged learning opportunities for interdisciplinary courses that include students from law, public health and other graduate school disciplines.