UH Mānoa School of Law professor Hazel Beh leads Health Law Policy Center

The University of Hawai‘i William S. Richardson School of Law has announced that Professor Hazel Beh has been appointed as the first director of its new Health Law Policy Center. The Center will focus on law and policy research and education aimed at improving health and well-being in Hawai‘i.

 

Dina Shek, the Center’s first Health Law Policy Fellow, is leading an interdisciplinary graduate course, "Health, Law & Poverty," that is examining how law and policy issues have a direct impact on the health and well-being of poor children and families. Shek has tapped into a wealth of expertise across the campus to make the course truly interdisciplinary, including Dr. Chris Derauf, director of the Division of Community Pediatrics at the John A. Burns School of Medicine, and Sylvia Law, Elizabeth K. Dollard Professor of Law, Medicine and Psychiatry at the New York University School of Law who has returned to Hawaiʻi on her sabbatical year. Shek stated, “We were not surprised that the course filled up quickly – there is a lot of interest in interdisciplinary work.”

 

The Center, together with the Medical-Legal Partnership for Children in Hawai‘i, Kōkua Kalihi Valley (Comprehensive Family Services), and Lei Hīpu u o Kalihi Early Childhood Development Project, kicked off the fall semester with a packed-house community lecture by Anthony Iton, MD, JD, MPH, the director of Health for Alameda County. Iton has devoted his career to studying the social determinants of health, such as race, class, wealth, and education.

 

In the spring, the Center will welcome as its first Distinguished Visitor, Professor Frances H. Miller of Boston University, one of the country’s foremost experts on American health care law and policy and a specialist on comparative health systems.

 

This year, the law school received a U.S. Department of Education Discretionary Grant of $238,000 to develop the Health Law Policy Center.