Fact Sheet

As a result of the Supreme Court decision in Dobbs, advocates on both sides of the abortion issue turned to state constitutions to determine the contours of a right to abortion or to make clear no such right exists under state law. When abortion was on the ballot in 2022, voters in several states rallied to enshrine the right to abortion in state constitutions and rejected attempts to further restrict abortions in their states. In the wake of these successful ballot measures, state legislators throughout the country have sought to amend ballot initiative processes ahead of the 2024 elections. This fact sheet outlines recent proposed amendments by several states that are intended to thwart pro-abortion ballot initiatives.

In Health Freedom Defense Fund v. Biden, the Eleventh Circuit vacated a lower court decision invalidating the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) transportation mask mandate. Because the mask mandate would have ended on its own terms when the federal COVID-19 Public Health Emergency expired on May 11, 2023, the Eleventh Circuit determined the case was moot. This Q&A describes the doctrine of mootness and the implications of this case.

Drug overdose continues to claim the lives of tens of thousands of people in the U.S. every year. Opioids, both prescription painkillers and street drugs such as heroin and illicitly manufactured fentanyl, are responsible for the majority of these deaths. In response, states have passed legislation to increase access to the opioid overdose reversal medication naloxone, including provisions that allow for the distribution of naloxone through pharmacies. Some states have gone further and now require that naloxone be prescribed or offered to some patients. This fact sheet describes those requirements and links to the relevant laws.

This Fact Sheet provides an overview of state-level legislation introduced or enacted since 2016 related to National Standards for Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Services (CLAS).

Incarcerated workers across the U.S. provide valuable goods and services, producing items used in state and local government agencies and engaging in work like road repair, firefighting, and post-disaster clean-up. They generate more than $2 billion a year in goods and $9 billion a year in services, but are not covered by typical workplace protections, like minimum wage and workplace safety laws. It is important for states to strike a balance between the requirements for prison labor and protecting the health and well-being of incarcerated people. This Fact Sheet summarizes prison procurement laws in states in the Network’s Southeastern Region, prompted by a question from the state of Virginia.

Variations among jurisdictions in determining and reporting causes of death and delays in obtaining and reporting fatality data often result in an incomplete and out-of-date view of the overdose epidemic in the U.S. It is imperative that health departments, harm reduction organizations, and people who use drugs are provided with accurate, timely and actionable information on drug-related overdose. This fact sheet provides a snapshot of current laws, regulations, and sub-regulatory sources governing mandatory disease reporting and a description of the laws and regulations governing reporting of overdoses in the jurisdictions that require or explicitly permit it as of March 31, 2023.

This fact sheet details the state laws that require private insurers to cover at least one formulation of naloxone and those that reduce barriers to access naloxone where it is covered. Because these laws were written during a time when no over the counter (OTC) naloxone formulations were available, none explicitly require coverage for OTC naloxone.

Medication abortion (or the “abortion pill”) generally refers to the use of two medications—mifepristone and misoprostol—to safely end an early pregnancy. Importantly, it does not refer to use of Plan B emergency contraceptive; in December 2022, FDA updated Plan B’s packaging insert to expressly acknowledge that it functions to prevent conception, not to end a pregnancy. In 2020, medication abortion was used for 53 percent of all U.S. abortions. However, since the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision on June 24, 2022, 15 states have implemented near-total abortion bans (though bans in select states including Indiana, Ohio, and Wyoming are currently blocked by state courts).

Black Maternal Health refers to the well-being of Black women during the prenatal period, pregnancy, and the postnatal period. Black women in the United States experience significantly disparate maternal health outcomes including disproportionately high rates of death related to pregnancy or childbirth compared to other racial and ethnic groups. This fact provides an overview of the state of Black maternal health in Pennsylvania and opportunities to improve Black health outcomes in the state.

Black Maternal Health refers to the well-being of Black women during the prenatal period, pregnancy, and the postnatal period. Black women in the United States experience significantly disparate maternal health outcomes including disproportionately high rates of death related to pregnancy or childbirth compared to other racial and ethnic groups. This fact provides an overview of the state of Black maternal health in New Jersey and opportunities to improve Black health outcomes in the state.

Black Maternal Health refers to the well-being of Black women during the prenatal period, pregnancy, and the postnatal period. Black women in the United States experience significantly disparate maternal health outcomes including disproportionately high rates of death related to pregnancy or childbirth compared to other racial and ethnic groups. This fact provides an overview of the state of Black maternal health in Maryland and opportunities to improve Black health outcomes in the state.

The federal COVID-19 Public Health Emergency (PHE) implemented changes that enabled people to stay on Medicaid. Most significantly, in 2020, Congress enacted the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA), which required states to keep people continuously enrolled in Medicaid through the end of the month in which the PHE ended. This fact sheet outlines how the unwinding of the continuous coverage period has a high risk of discriminatory impact on certain populations which are often the same ones facing significant harm from coverage loss.