Abstract
At a basic level, laws govern human relations and how we try to manage the world around us. Laws also help legitimize how some attempt to manage the interactions of all, with one another and our physical, social, cultural, economic, and political environments. This chapter tries to illuminate how laws historically operate in relation to public health issues and priorities in the United States, using examples of benefits and disability civil rights laws. The examples will show at least three levels of connection between public health and the operation of law that significantly impact people with disabilities. First, law directly mediates how disabled persons gain access to public benefits, some of which are general and some of which are intended only for people with disabilities. Second, law itself is a major tool for changing our environment and for gaining access to social determinants of health. Third, the law establishes who is a full rights-bearing subject of law who has independent capacity to try and enforce those rights as an individual or as a member of a protected group. There is overlap among these connections, but it is useful for analysis to distinguish between them. The end of the chapter suggests a fourth connection that occurs as our larger environment shapes how society writes and enforces law even as our laws, in turn, shape how we perceive a need for law and its just implementation. Disability civil rights laws have tried to change how disability is understood and are therefore treated in and under laws relating to public health.
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Yee, S. (2021). Law, Benefits, Disability Rights, and Public Health: A Sum Greater than the Parts?. In: Lollar, D.J., Horner-Johnson, W., Froehlich-Grobe, K. (eds) Public Health Perspectives on Disability. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-0716-0888-3_13
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