About

Elizabeth Tobin-Tyler, JD, MA, is a Professor of Health Services, Policy and Practice at the Brown University School of Public Health and of Family Medicine and Medical Science at the Alpert Medical School. She is the Co-Founder and Co-Director of the Advancing Impact on Maternal and Reproductive Health (AIM) Lab. Her teaching and research focus on reproductive health, rights and justice, maternal health policy, violence against women, public health law, health justice, and social safety nets. She is recognized as an international expert in the development of medical-legal partnerships, which integrate healthcare, public health, and legal services to address and prevent health-harming social and legal needs of underserved populations. Tobin-Tyler has contributed to the field through her role as senior editor and contributor to the textbook 'Poverty, Health and Law' and as co-author of 'Essentials of Health Justice: Law, Policy and Structural Change.' Her extensive publication record includes articles in prominent journals such as The New England Journal of Medicine, American Journal of Public Health, and Health Affairs. She has received several fellowships and honors, including recognition from the National Academy of Medicine and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, reflecting her leadership in health law, social justice, and public health.

Research topics

• Medicine
• Sociology
• Political Science
• Psychoanalysis
• Social psychology
• Medical emergency
• Criminology
• Law
• Internal medicine
• Psychology
• Virology

Selected publications

• How Big Is the “Gray Area”? Navigating Health-Threatening Previability Pregnancy Complications in States With Abortion Restrictions

  Annals of Internal Medicine · 2026-05-18

  article
  PublisherDOI

• <i>Deanda v. Becerra</i> : The Implications of the New Legal Attack on Longstanding Title X Policy

  American Journal of Law & Medicine · 2025-03-01

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract This commentary analyzes the recent attacks on adolescents’ access to contraception by religious and parental rights activists and the conservative legal movement. Specifically, we focus on Deanda v. Becerra , a 2024 case in which the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals held that a Texas state law requiring parental consent for minors to access contraception is not preempted by a longstanding policy under Title X of the federal Public Health Service Act that prohibits clinics receiving federal funding from requiring parental consent or notification. We first describe existing laws governing minors’ confidential access to reproductive health care, including the federal constitutional framework for parental rights, state parental notification and consent laws, and Title X, the federal law that provides federal funds to reproductive health care clinics for low-income people. We then examine and critique the Federal District Court ruling in Deanda , which elevated individual religious and parental rights over public health concerns, and the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals decision in that case, which undermined federal public health authority and jeopardized access to reproductive health care for low-income adolescents. Finally, we assess the public health and reproductive rights implications of restricted access to reproductive health care for minors and consider possible future directions and advocacy opportunities for reproductive, public health and legal advocates to promote continued access to contraception for adolescents despite mounting legal challenges.

  PublisherDOI

• “Sure, Let’s See What You Got”: A Qualitative Analysis of Healthcare Provider Letters Used in Court Proceedings

  Journal of General Internal Medicine · 2025-10-07

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Health, Housing, and Justice: Two‐Year Implementation Evaluation of a Health System's Multi‐State Medical‐Legal Partnership to Address Housing Instability

  Health Services Research · 2025-03-26 · 3 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  OBJECTIVE: To assess reach and identify facilitators of and barriers to the implementation of housing-focused medical-legal partnerships (MLPs) within a large healthcare system. STUDY SETTING AND DESIGN: In 2021, Kaiser Permanente (KP) launched the Health, Housing, and Justice (HHJ) Initiative to embed MLPs within five medical centers across four states. KP invested in the capacity of five publicly funded legal aid providers to collaborate with healthcare teams and focus on housing stability. This paper summarizes findings from a mixed-methods implementation evaluation conducted from 2021 to 2023 on staff and system capacity, operational facilitators and barriers, and lessons learned. DATA SOURCES AND ANALYTIC SAMPLE: Data sources included key informant interviews with healthcare and legal staff, surveys of social workers and care navigators, and administrative data on 857 legal referrals made by medical staff in 2022-2023 for housing-related legal support. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Implementation characteristics and the rate of referrals varied across each of the six sites engaged in the multisite MLP. Attorneys reported that the MLP enabled access to legal resources for clients who typically would not have access. Most cases (82%) were addressed with fewer than 5 h of attorney time. Key implementation facilitators included clinical champions in the partnering medical team, staff training with a focus on knowledge of housing-related legal issues and MLP referral criteria, and existing social screening processes. Key implementation barriers were associated with information sharing, orienting legal partners to a complex medical system, and mismatches in service delivery areas between KP and the legal aid organizations. CONCLUSIONS: Embedding MLPs upstream in healthcare systems can enable access to legal resources for underserved clients. Attention to key implementation factors can support the spread of MLPs within other large healthcare systems.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• How State Antiabortion Lawsuits and Increased Surveillance Empower Domestic Abusers

  JAMA · 2025-06-23

  article1st authorCorresponding

  This Viewpoint examines how state-level abortion restrictions, lawsuits, and reproductive health surveillance empower domestic abusers.

  PublisherDOI

• The Dobbs decision, maternal homicide, and family violence: a call for interdisciplinary action

  Journal of Public Health Policy · 2025-11-03

  letter
  PublisherDOI

• Legal and Ethical Issues in Periviable Decision-Making in the Current Moment

  The Journal of Law Medicine & Ethics · 2025-01-01

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Periviable births, occurring between 20 and 25 weeks of gestation, present significant challenges due to varying survival rates and potential morbidities for survivors. Medical decision-making in this context raises ethical and legal questions, including considerations of sanctity of life versus quality of life and challenges in the clinician-parent relationship. This article outlines the complex ethical and legal landscape surrounding parental medical decision-making for periviable infants in the United States, discussing the evolution of federal and state laws. Existing laws highlight a vitalist approach that prioritizes life preservation despite potential harm and overlook non-heteronormative and non-traditional family structures, complicating decision-making. The impact of post-Dobbs state abortion bans on parental and clinician autonomy have exacerbated these challenges. We advocate for legislative support for inclusive definitions of legal parenthood to facilitate evidence-based decision-making centered on patients and families. Also needed are legal frameworks that accommodate the intricacies of periviable birth decisions while respecting patient autonomy and medical expertise, especially amidst the evolving legislative environment.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Centering Law In Public Health Education

  Forefront Group · 2024-04-12 · 1 citations

  dataset

  Building on new research surveying current curricular practices in schools and programs of public health (SPPH), we offer steps that SPPH might take to make public health law a "core requirement" in their curricula, thereby mainstreaming law in public health education.

  PublisherDOI

• How to Advance Legal Education for Future Public Health Professionals.

  UNC Libraries · 2024-09-25

  articleOpen access

  Recent scholarship has advocated for schools and programs of public health (SPPHs) to move public health law from the periphery to the core of the public health curriculum, in recognition of law’s role as a fundamental driver of health outcomes. 1,2 The Five Essential Public Health Law Services—developed through a transdisciplinary collaboration of public health practitioners, researchers, advocates, and attorneys—emphasize that competency in public health law requires much more than the ability to summarize key statutes or court decisions.3 Rather, “[p]eople working in public health—whether in agencies, non-governmental organizations, health systems, research and even biomedical sciences— can expect to carry out a variety of functions that involve law, frequently without the assistance or even the involvement of lawyers.”1 These functions include the design, development, implementation, enforcement, and evaluation of legal interventions (to prevent drug overdoses, ensure food safety, contain infectious disease outbreaks, and much more)—functions that have become more complex and politically charged, but no less important, since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

  PublisherDOI

• Rape, Homicide, and Abortion Bans — The Abandonment of People Subjected to Sexual and Intimate Partner Violence

  New England Journal of Medicine · 2024-07-20 · 4 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Eli Y. Adashi

  Brown University

  12 shared

• Benjamin Gallo Marin

  Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center

  8 shared

• Joel B. Teitelbaum

  8 shared

• Alex Rosenthal

  8 shared

• Briana Christophers

  Princeton University

  6 shared

• Paul George

  6 shared

• Daniel S. Goldberg

  University of Colorado System

  6 shared

• Micah L. Berman

  The Ohio State University

  6 shared

Labs

• AIM LabPI

Education

• M.A., Health Services, Policy and Practice

  Brown University

• Other

  Brown University

Awards & honors

• Emerging Leaders in Health and Medicine Forum by the Nationa…
• Public Health Law Education Faculty Fellow by the Robert Woo…
• Fellow at the Law, Health, Justice Centre at the University…