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Abstract

Public health is a collective responsibility of society to improve the health and wellbeing of communities, focusing on preventing disease and promoting health as opposed to providing medical care for those already ill.1 The law consists of rules issued and enforced by government entities “through which populations organize their governments, regulate social and economic interactions, and guide behavior.”2 Public health law exists at the intersection of these two fields, comprising “the legal powers and duties of the state to identify, prevent, and ameliorate risks to the health of populations, as well as the study of legal structures that have a significant impact on the health of populations.”3 Public health laws can be divided into three general categories. Interventional health laws are those focused on targeting a specified public health problem, such as targeting antibiotic resistance through intellectual property laws.4 Infrastructural health laws are those that determine the powers, duties, and restraints of health agencies to influence the health of the communities they serve.5 Incidental public health laws are those that do not primarily focus on a health issue but have an impact on health nonetheless, such as land use laws.6 Food swamps, and the food environment in general, are often a result of laws in the latter category, like zoning laws discussed later in this paper.

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