Centre Showcase: Centre for Health, Law, and Society
IMAGE: At the CHLS annual symposium in 2018, the keynote lecture was given by Dame Clare Gerada, former Chair of the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP).
Reinventing health law The Centre for Health, Law, and Society is recognised as an outstanding centre of excellence for innovative research in health-focused legal studies. Its members provide guidance to help shape the law and influence debates on some of the most important advances in the regulation of health in society. Informing debates on the ‘nanny state’: Professor John
Coggon was commissioned to produce a report for the UK Faculty of Public Health on the ‘nanny state’ debate and its implications for policy and practice (2018). At the heart of the report was the question of whether laws designed to promote healthier lives - for example through legislative strategies on obesity or tobacco - unacceptably infringe people’s rights. The resulting report was circulated to ministers in Westminster, the European Parliament and members of the Scottish Parliament.
14
Preventing non-communicable diseases: Professors Keith Syrett and John Coggon secured roles as co-investigators on two major UK Prevention Research Partnership (UKPRP) Consortia Awards, totalling £12.5 million over five years. The projects aim to tackle non-communicable diseases (NCDs), which make up the vast majority of illnesses in the UK and account for an estimated 89 per cent of all deaths. Coggon is looking at unhealthy urban planning and development. Syrett is investigating the commercial determinants of health and health inequalities - the approaches used by commercial producers of tobacco, alcohol and food to promote products, influence policy and people’s choices, which in turn impacts on our health as a population.