Enrollment in Nevada’s Medicaid program has increased dramatically this year – by over 18% in just 9 months – as the country continues to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic and its consequences. As Administrator for the Nevada Division of Health Care Financing & Policy, Advisory Board member Suzanne Bierman, JD, MPH, has overseen this rapid expansion to ensure eligible patients receive the care that they need. During this global health pandemic, it has been more important than ever to redouble efforts to provide Nevadans with information on affordable health insurance options. Health insurance is

Prof. Leslie Griffin authored a blog post, "Stigma and the Oral Argument in Fulton v. City of Philadelphia," in which she analyzed the U.S. Supreme Court's oral argument in a pivotal case involving the conflict between anti-discrimination law and the freedom of religion. In Fulton, a religious group is arguing that it has a First Amendment right to disobey Philadelphia's anti discrimination laws while picking foster parents for children. In her post, Prof. Griffin discussed the need to enforce anti-discrimination laws to protect children and parents in LGBTQ+ families from stigmatization. Prof

Professor Gordon has spent the last several years focusing on the ways in which old ideas and myths about alcohol and substance use have impacted individuals who are diverted out of the criminal justice system and into drug and other specialty courts. But myths and their effect on decision making are of course not limited to substance use, and Professor Gordon is going to spend this summer writing about the admission of forensic feature comparison methods in criminal trials¾these are the forensic methods that allow experts to match things like bitemarks or latent fingerprints to a criminal

Last month, at the 2018 Nevada Public Health Association meeting in Las Vegas, Prof. Max Gakh and his co-authors presented findings from their research paper, Insights into How HIAs are Characterized in the Press: Findings from a Media Analysis of Widely Circulated United States Newspapers. Health impact assessments, or HIAs, contribute scientific evidence to questions of policy. This project systematically examined the portrayal of HIAs to look for patterns. Based on their findings, they recommend engaging major media sources during the HIA process, especially to highlight policy

Fingerprint evidence provides police a critical and scientific way to identify criminals. Or so it is thought. But as Prof. Sara Gordon and others have found, fingerprint analysis and other common kinds of forensic evidence can convict the innocent.

Prof. Gordon will be discussing her important work at the 2019 symposium of the University of Denver Law Review, “Driven by Data: Empirical Legal Studies in Civil Litigation and Health Law.” This symposium will explore the most current empirical legal research in jury decision making and health law, and Prof. Gordon will present her research

The “medicalization” model of poverty leads us to devote considerable resources to treating the healthcare problems caused by poverty while neglecting the root cause of those problems — the poverty itself. Treating symptoms rather than causes is far less effective than treating causes. When correctly understood, poverty is a major public health problem that needs to be addressed directly with effective anti-poverty programs. Only then can we properly serve the healthcare needs of the poor. For Dr. David Orentlicher’s full discussion of poverty and health, see his forthcoming article, “Health

Prof. Ann McGinley published The Masculinity Motivation online as part of a #MeToo joint symposium of Yale Law Journal and Stanford Law Review.  The essay observes that elementary, middle, and high schools act as “training grounds” for sexual harassment in the workplace, and judges fail to hold school boards accountable under Title IX for serious sexual harassment occurring in schools as a result of boys’ need to prove their masculinity to their peers.  The harassment that occurs, she notes, is both physical and verbal, and is often ignored by school officials and the courts.  Boys as well as

This summer, Prof. Sara Gordon was invited to testify before the Nevada Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights about the impact of policing on people with mental illness. The Committee is studying police practices as they relate to mental health and public health, with special emphasis on the impact on veterans and people of color.  Prof. Gordon was invited to address best practices pertaining to the treatment of individuals with co-occurring substance use and mental health disorders in the criminal justice system. Prof. Gordon testified about drug and other specialty courts

In a forthcoming article, "Health Care Reform: What Has Been Accomplished? What Comes Next?," Dr. David Orentlicher discusses what we have learned and what we can expect from the Affordable Care Act. Enactment of the ACA in 2010 marked the most important accomplishment in U.S. health care reform in decades. Not since Medicare and Medicaid were passed in 1965 have so many Americans been given access to insurance coverage for their health care. Though the goal of universal health care was not achieved, ACA brought coverage to millions of uninsured Americans and provided assurance to the already