Lawyers Helping Doctors? Medical-legal partnerships as a vehicle for social change

The classic public health dilemma: a child with severe asthma is treated with medication, only to return home to an apartment full of cockroaches and mold. While physicians treat the child's asthma, he/she is seemingly powerless to improve the child's living conditions. Purpose: To highlight the “medical-legal partnership” (MLP) as a vehicle for social change. MLPs provide patients and physicians with the power to improve health outcomes by addressing the problem of access to resources.

Significance: Traditional models of public health prevention have focused on specific disease causalities, without addressing fundamental causes of disease, such as access to resources driven by poverty. The MLP model is an interdisciplinary approach to public health prevention which aims at targeting barriers to improved health, including lack of food, housing, and disability benefits. Lawyers in MLPs assist patients in resolving conflict with landlord-tenant disputes, social security disability, and Medicaid issues. Methods: New York Legal Assistance Group LegalHealth department (NYLAG) is one such model which serves a low-income, urban population in New York City. Founded in 2001 NYLAG LegalHealth assists clients at no fee in 17 hospitals and medical clinics throughout NYC. Results: The study of NYLAG has revealed that the program has improved health outcomes in children with asthma, has reduced stress in cancer survivors, and has created physician awareness about the importance of medical-legal collaborations.

Implications: Medical-legal partnerships such as NYLAG are a model for social change which addresses fundamental concerns of access to resources critical to public health.