Wendy K. Mariner

Var credits

Directed Research provide the opportunity for students to explore a special topic of interest under the direction of a full-time SPH faculty member. Students may register for 1, 2, 3, or 4 credits. To register, students must submit a paper registration form and signed directed research proposal form. Students are placed in a section by the Registrar's Office according to the faculty member with whom they are working. Students may take no more than eight credits of directed study, directed research, or practica courses during their MPH education.

3 credits

This course will introduce the framework of constitutional, statutory, and international law that both authorizes and constrains the conduct of U.S. foreign affairs. After studying the constitutional allocation of foreign affairs powers among the branches of the federal government and the foundations of the government's national security powers, the course will turn to discrete topics of contemporary relevance, including the power and limits of judicial authority in foreign affairs; treaties and other international agreements; customary international law's status in the U.S. legal system; foreign affairs powers retained by the several states; the application of the Constitution to persons and incidents abroad; war powers; covert action; the detention, interrogation, and trial of terrorists and other irregular combatants, before courts and military commissions; targeted killing; torture and other coercive interrogation; and the protection of individual liberties and civil rights in wartime. Grading will be based on a twenty-four hour take-home final. RESTRICTION: Students who have previously enrolled in National Security Law (JD890) may not register for this course.

4 credits

This seminar offers an in-depth examination of the pivotal role of public and private insurance in US health policy. Health insurance pays for almost all health care in the US, strongly influencing (often dictating) who gets what care and on what terms. The class explores how the Affordable Care Act affects the design, operation, and regulation of health benefit plans, including Medicare, Medicaid, employer-sponsored group plans, and commercial insurance. Investigating contemporary regulations, students learn fundamentals of insurance, where reforms do and do not alter such fundamentals, and whether reforms affect larger principles of law. Topics include state and federal regulation; ERISA plan requirements; ERISA preemption of certain state laws; accepting, managing and shifting financial risk; designing health insurance exchanges; contracting with providers, Accountable Care Organizations, employers, and individuals; designing and administering plans; defining benefits, including Essential Health Benefits; appeals and remedies; and state adaptations of health insurance exchanges, subsidy wrap-arounds, risk corridors, and Medicaid expansions.

4 credits

This is a course about who gets what health services, when and how. Policies and laws governing what services are available and on what terms strongly influence health status at both the individual and population levels. This course examines the Constitutional, regulatory, political and socio-economic bases for the policies that determine access, quality, cost and equity in health services and population health programs. While the focus is principally on US examples, the course is structured on the World Health Organization's framework for organizing and analyzing national health systems, covering governance, financing, delivery systems, workforce, and human and other resources. The course combines intensive individual preparation for each class using both written and video materials, interactive class presentations and hands-on individual and group projects in laboratory sessions.

4 credits

Traditional public health is rapidly transforming itself from state programs to prevent disease in populations (e.g., vaccinations and newborn screening) to federal and international efforts to more broadly promote the "right to health." This problem-oriented seminar enables students to analyze and answer questions about health risks and public health policies as they typically arise in practice -- in all their complexity and without preassigned doctrinal labels. It covers contemporary examples of the seven deadly sins -- anger, gluttony, lust, sloth -- plus drugs, alcohol, tobacco, food, firearms, biobanks, epidemics, and surveillance. The seminar offers a systematic framework for identifying and controlling health risks, drawing on theories of risk perception, cognitive reasoning and empirical evidence. Students analyze and compare the applicability and effectiveness of different legal strategies to control risks, such as criminal and civil prohibitions, mandatory product standards, tort liability, mandatory data collection, biometric testing, conditions of employment, marketing restrictions, quarantine, and taxation. Emphasis is on the different scope of laws (state, federal and international) regulating personal behavior and laws regulating products and commercial activities. A writing project to develop a legal strategy to address a contemporary risk to health is required.

REMINDER: This is a SPH course. Students cannot register through WebReg. Students who register for the class and want law credit must add the course to their law transcript by completing an add form at the Law Registrar's Office before the end of the add/drop period for that semester.

3 credits

Public health is transforming from state programs that prevent disease in populations (e.g., vaccination, newborn screening) to federal and international efforts to broadly promote a population and individual "right to health." This seminar explores contemporary examples of public health problems such as firearms regulation, obesity, and reproductive health. The course offers a framework for identifying and controlling health risks drawing on principles and theories of law, assessment of risk, policy evaluation, and empirical evidence. We will consider the scope of laws at the state and federal levels that regulate personal behaviors, products, and commercial activities. Students will analyze different legal strategies that can be used to influence public health such as governmental nudges through funding, criminal and civil prohibitions, data collection and privacy, marketing restrictions, and taxation. A research paper to develop a legal strategy that addresses a contemporary public health problem is required. (A limited number of law students may satisfy the BUSL upper-class writing requirement in this seminar after discussion with the instructor.) GRADING NOTICE: This course does not offer the CR/NC/H option. UPPER-CLASS WRITING REQUIREMENT: This class may be used to satisfy the requirement. **A student who fails to attend the initial meeting of a seminar (designated by an (S) in the title), or to obtain permission to be absent from either the instructor or the Registrar, may be administratively dropped from the seminar. Students who are on a wait list for a seminar are required to attend the first seminar meeting to be considered for enrollment.