Global Health Institute

Last spring I took a course titled, Environmental Law, Technology, and Justice which examined how environmental laws in the United States were originally created to protect public health. I learned that while the federal government does have measures in place to regulate outdoor air pollution, there is little government oversight on indoor air pollution. In fact, indoor air pollution has always often been ignored and is an invisible issue when it comes to promoting public health.

Events such as the 2003 severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) epidemic, the 2014 West Africa Ebola outbreak, and the 2016 Zika pandemic not only stressed the interconnectedness of our world, but also highlighted the disproportionately distributed burden of disease that epidemics have around the world. Despite the increased visibility of global health security, there has been surprisingly little discussion on the equity dimensions of the global health security regime.