Projects  > Law & Public Health

Public health law is one of the important infrastructural components for public health practice. The laws enacted by each state provide an organizational structure for public health programs at the state and local level, define the powers and obligations of the public health authority, and assure that community and individual interests are appropriately balanced. Within this burgeoning field of research, public health law projects in recent years have evidenced a growing awareness of the importance of having adequate legislation to assess the public health needs of a given population and to provide the authority for disease prevention and health promotion efforts.

Modernizing Public Health Law: The Impact of the Turning Point Model State Public Health Act on State Legislative Reform

Many public and private sector policymakers, scholars, and public health officials agree that state-based public health laws are ripe for reform. The Turning Point Model State Public Health Act (Turning Point Act), completed in September 2003, provides a comprehensive template for states interested in public health law reform and modernization. Building off of prior legislative tracking efforts by the Center for Law and the Public’s Health, this research examines the political and policy efforts undertaken by state actors to translate the Turning Point Act into legislation, assessing how the Turning Point Act affects public health laws, their reform, and subsequent changes in public health regulations, organizations, or programs.

Gap Analysis: Comparing the Model State Emergency Health Powers Act with Corresponding New York State and New York City Statutory Authority

The Center for Health Policy is conducting a gap analysis with the New York State Bar Association to compare New York State and New York City law with provisions of the Model State Emergency Health Powers Act (MSEHPA), developed by the Center for Law and the Public’s Health, a collaborative at Johns Hopkins and Georgetown Universities. The purpose of the gap analysis is to serve as a starting point for discussion to guide policymakers concerning law reform in the area of public health emergency preparedness. The Center will present this gap analysis at the Public Health Emergency Preparedness Conference on May 15, 2008 in Yonkers, NY.

Examination of the Relationship Between Public Health Enabling Statutes and System Performance

The National Public Health Performance Standards (NPHPS) Program is a partnership effort to improve the quality of practice and performance of public health systems, establishing comprehensive cross-cutting standards to catalyze performance improvement in public health and contribute to a strong science base for public health practice. The assessment instruments used by the NPHPS program are based on 1994 Essential Services of Public Health, the standard for public health service provision at local, state and federal levels. Although many states have recently reformed their enabling statues pursuant to the Turning Point Model State Public Health Act to codify these essential public health services, it is unclear what effect these modernized laws have had on public health system performance. This research project, with the support of the National Network of Public Health Institutes, is examining the relationship between the degree to which the statues enabling the public health agency reflect the essential services and the level of public health system performance as reported in NPHPS data. This research is being undertaken by (1) conducting a qualitative analysis of public health statues in states for which there are NPHPSP data and (2) conducting a quantitative analysis to determine the association between the degree to which each of the essential services occur in states’ enabling statutes and the performance scores received on NPHPS instruments for each of the essential services. Findings and analysis based on this study will contribute to our understanding of the structure of health systems and governance, enhancing the practice community’s understanding of the relationship of public health laws to system performance.

Collaborations in Public Health Law as It Relates to Oral Health Issues

Working with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Center for Health Policy is documenting, analyzing, and disseminating public health legal principles relating to improved oral health through community water fluoridation, identifying the legal boundaries and considerations that pervade debates about community water fluoridation and thus furthering CDC’s goal of raising the proportion of the population with access to fluoridated water. The approach blends expertise in law, public health policy, dental public health, and political science to:

• Provide an accessible database of laws, legal reforms, legal challenges, and related interpretive material about community water fluoridation
• Increase legal competencies of those interested in improving oral health (public health professionals, oral health professionals, dental public health advocates, the legal community, and others) to apply law as an effective tool for community water fluoridation, and
• Collaborate with CDC and its partners—the Association of State and Territorial Dental Directors, Children’s Dental Health Project, and Oral Health America—to strengthen state and local capacity for understanding and using legal principles to promote and maintain community water fluoridation through education, consultation, and technical assistance.

Public Health Law and State Reporting of Healthcare-Associated Infections

This project documents and analyzes current state public health legislation and regulation regarding mandatory reporting of healthcare associated infections (HAI). HAI are a major source of multiple drug resistant organisms (MDRO), and consequently, the study of HAI has become a focus of the Center for Interdisciplinary Research on Antimicrobial Resistance (CIRAR) Consortium, which funded the current study. Working with Dr. Patricia Stone, this study is using a systematic interdisciplinary approach that blends the research methods of law, public health policy, and political science along with expertise in infection control processes and resulting HAI to answer the following significant questions about the mandatory reporting on HAI:

• Which states require reporting of HAI, and if so, is this done by legislation or administrative regulation?
• Are the specific HAI to be reported identified in state law or are these HAI considered to be diseases “of public health importance,” with reporting specified by administrative regulation?
• Whether in law or regulation, what reporting policies and procedures are detailed in law (e.g., who is required to report, at what level of detail, and to whom (if anyone) beyond the public health authority will institutionally identifiable information be released)?

Building the Base for a Research Agenda on Local Public Health Legal Authority

With support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and collaboration from the Center for Law and the Public’s Health at Georgetown & Johns Hopkins Universities, this project assesses the effectiveness of law as a tool to improve local public health. The significant role played by local governments, health boards, and agencies in protecting community health necessitates studying legal actions beyond those encompassed in state public health law. To do so, this research seeks to build the base for a research agenda on local public health legal authority by documenting and analyzing the scope, breadth, and content of local public health ordinances in several key program areas.

Health Policy Speaker Series

Modeling Laws to Protect the Public's Health Internationally (April 11, 2006)

Legal and Ethical Considerations for Revisions to Regulations for the Protection of Prisoners Involved in Research (April 23, 2007)