Projects
The Center for Health Law and Policy Innovation (CHLPI) works to carry out its mission through discrete, targeted projects. These projects serve to deepen our impact within CHLPI’s focus areas as staff and students take concrete action to make real change. Explore our current projects below, and find relevant resources, information about our partners, and what we’re doing to make a difference in our health and food systems.
The Center for Health Law and Policy Innovation’s (CHLPI) advocacy efforts include amicus curiae work, which are legal briefs submitted to a court or agency on behalf of stakeholders other than the parties themselves. We draft or join these briefs routinely both to support the legal and policy goals of the communities that we work for, as well as to support our colleagues and fellow advocates in the areas of health care access, anti-discrimination, and social determinants of health. A representative sample of our amicus work is below.
Civil Rights Protections in the Affordable Care Act
- T.S. v. Heart of CarDon (November 2021, Seventh Circuit, on appeal from the Southern District Court of Indiana): Arguing that categorical exclusions in health care coverage for people with autism undermine nondiscrimination protections in the Affordable Care Act.
- CVS v. Doe (October 2021, Supreme Court, on writ of certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit): Arguing that mandatory mail order pharmacy programs present significant privacy, timeliness, and safety concerns for people living with HIV.
- Kadel v. Folwell (Octobe...
Community-based and community-driven organizations, particularly those led by individuals who are Black, Indigenous, and other Persons of Color (BIPOC), have long advocated for food system changes that would promote equity, transparency, and participatory decision-making for the benefit of families, communities, food producers, and food system workers. However, transforming the way food is produced, distributed, consumed, and disposed requires advocates to navigate a complex food law and policy landscape.
...A growing number of local food advocates have become concerned about the impacts of the current food system on our health, our environment, and our economies. Many advocates seek to address the system’s environmentally damaging practices, inequitable distribution of healthy foods, and lack of opportunity for civic engagement in the current model of food production and consumption. Solving these challenges often requires healthy, environmentally sustainable, and economically and socially just food policies.
...Regulation of the American food system is marked by inequality and inefficiency. There is no federal “food” agency; instead, food is regulated by fifteen different agencies under myriad federal laws, resulting in conflict, inefficiency, and redundancy.
...Despite the key role that food plays in public health, the majority of physicians are ill-equipped to answer basic questions about food and nutrition. On average, U.S. medical schools offer less than 1% of total lecture hours in nutrition education. Most patients consider physicians to be the most credible sources of guidance about diet and food and would like to talk to their physicians about these topics, yet the majority of graduating medical students rate their nutrition knowledge as “inadequate.”
...The food system is responsible for an estimated 19 to 29 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. Perennial agriculture, which refers to the production of crops that are harvested multiple times and live for several seasons without being uprooted, offers a unique and transformative opportunity to drastically reduce these emissions and sequester carbon while offering a wide range of additional environmental and societal benefits. Nonetheless, there remains a disconnect between public policy scholars and practitioners on one hand, and scientists and farmers on the other, impeding the expansion of perennial practices. To help bridge that gap, the Food Law and Policy Clinic (FLPC) works with a coalition of leading perennial agriculture organizations to support the advancement of a perennial agriculture policy agenda.
...The Center for Health Law and Policy Innovation of Harvard Law School (CHLPI) has a special focus on infectious disease and access to health care services that promote public health in Massachusetts.
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