Kerri McGowan Lowrey, J.D., M.P.H., is Deputy Director and Director for Grants & Research for the Network for Public Health Law, Eastern Region, based at the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law. Kerri has more than 20 years of experience as a public health lawyer. Her areas of focus have included injury prevention law, particularly sports and recreational injury prevention in children and adolescents; laws affecting return to school after traumatic brain injury; driver licensing laws and practices; health data privacy and sharing in the school setting; education as a social determinant of health; and housing instability. Kerri spearheaded the development of an interprofessional eviction prevention project with the University of Maryland School of Social Work, which seeks to provide legal triage and access to community support services for families facing housing instability due to the pandemic. She currently serves as co-chair of the Children’s Safety Now Alliance Steering Committee, an alliance of more than 35 organizations seeking to elevate child safety as a national priority and address the related needs of state and local health departments. Kerri’s specialized training includes a four-year term as a Cancer Prevention Fellow at the National Cancer Institute, where she assisted in developing the Cancer Prevention Fellowship Ethics Track. Prior to joining the Network for Public Health Law, Kerri served as Technical Vice President at the MayaTech Corporation in Silver Spring, MD, and Manager of its Center for Health Policy and Legislative Analysis. She received her J.D. from the University of Maryland School of Law, an M.P.H. from the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, and A.B. in public policy and American institutions from Brown University.
This resource contains information on youth sports concussion laws in each state, summarizing requirements for return-to -play protocols, medical clearance, training for coaches, education for parents, and other critical aspects.
Education has emerged as a social determinant of health in its own right. More highly educated individuals are healthier and tend to live longer; they also are at less risk of smoking, drug abuse, accidents and chronic diseases. Despite federal laws that guarantee all children a free appropriate public education, major inequities exist.
All 50 states and the District of Columbia prohibit the operation of a boat while intoxicated. This resource provides a compilation of state BUI laws and provisions.
School nurses collect and are responsible for a vast amount of personal information related to students and their health. This resource is designed to help school nurses understand what information they can share, when, and with whom in accordance with federal privacy laws.
This fact sheet provides examples of ways that states have chosen to address Medicaid billing for school nursing, highlighting the need for states to consider expanding Medicaid coverage for school nursing services by amending state laws.
Concern over immigration enforcement can prevent immigrants from obtaining needed health care. Many immigrants worry that health workers will share their undocumented status with immigration authorities. Removing barriers to immigrants’ utilization of preventative and other health care services is important for public health. This issue brief explores relevant federal and state health privacy laws and how they apply to undocumented immigrants and provides information on health care providers’ rights and responsibilities when providing health care to immigrants.
One in five child passenger fatalities in the U.S. involve an impaired driver, most commonly the child’s own driver. Forty-six states and D.C. have child endangerment statutes that impose special sanctions for driving under the influence while transporting a child. Despite the widespread use of such laws, studies of their effectiveness suggest they may not be effective in preventing alcohol-related child fatalities in motor vehicle crashes, primarily due to low public awareness and lax enforcement.
The high cost of health care and the increasing decline in health insurance coverage are a concern for all people living in America. But for immigrants, who have extremely low rates of insurance coverage compared to U.S.-born populations, the situation is even more precarious. Low incomes, lack of insurance, concern over immigration enforcement, and other barriers pose serious threats to immigrant health. That, in turn, poses a risk to the broader public health. Federal and state laws impact immigrants’ access to care and, therefore, public health. Attend this webinar to examine a few of the laws and policies that create barriers to immigrants’ access to care.
This resource summarizes laws in each state and the District of Columbia that recognize same-sex relationships, deny protections to same-sex couples, and other factors.
This resource contains information on U.S. protections for victims of domestic violence in same-sex relationships.
School nurses can play a critical role in advancing child and adolescent health — including expanding access to care for many children. However, laws across the country do not yet recognize the importance of school nurses, and only one state requires a full-time registered nurse in every school.
Among the most pressing public health issues of 2018, access to healthcare, electronic nicotine delivery systems, injury prevention, and food insecurity saw significant legislation and policy impacts. In this webinar, subject matter experts will recap how four important public health initiatives—expansion of scope of practice; regulation of electronic nicotine delivery systems; traumatic brain injury prevention; and food insecurity and SNAP—were impacted in 2018.
