The ability to share and analyze health and other data can be powerful in identifying problems and solutions to improve the health of communities. Our collection of tools and resources are designed to help address legal barriers and facilitate data sharing while ensuring health agencies and organizations operate within the legal requirements of HIPAA and other regulations.
There are novel and innovative ways that law and policy can be used to advance health initiatives. Emerging public health issues like climate adaptation, social determinants of health, and the impact of trauma on health call for new approaches and strategies that leverage law and policy in new, previously unexplored ways.
The Network’s monthly reporter, Judicial Trends in Public Health (JTPH), highlights key court cases and relevant judicial trends in public health. The cases below are organized…
The Network for Public Health Law monitors key court cases and relevant judicial trends in public health. The Network’s monthly reporter, Judicial Trends in Public…
The Network’s monthly reporter, Judicial Trends in Public Health (JTPH), highlights key court cases and relevant judicial trends in public health. The cases below are organized…
Data are essential for public health surveillance, epidemiological investigation, research, program development, implementation and evaluation. A complex legal landscape, and lack of knowledge and training in law, result in actual or perceived barriers to data collection, use and sharing. As a result, opportunities are missed to use and share electronic data to improve the health of communities, promote wellness, address social determinants of health and increase health equity.
When financially stressed Flint, Michigan, switched the source of its water from Lake Huron to the Flint River as a cost-cutting measure, the river water corroded the city's aging service lines. As a result, thousands of children and adults were poisoned after lead leached into the city's drinking water. To ensure that future decisions made in other communities incorporate the lessons learned from this preventable disaster, the Network partnered with the University of Michigan School of Public Health to examine the legal and governmental failures at the heart of the crisis and create resources that inform government officials, policymakers and community advocates.
Across the U.S., both public and private entities are working to address the impacts of climate change on the health of our communities. The Great Lakes Integrated Sciences and Assessments Program works to integrate information from a wide array of scientific fields, develops collaborations between entities with similar goals, and helps inform decision makers throughout the Great Lakes region with sound science on climate change and variability.
Individuals and communities across the United States are struggling to address the ongoing epidemic of drug-related harm. While some progress has been made, efforts to initiate, expand, and sustain evidence-based and promising initiatives to reduce this harm are often hindered by laws and policies that reflect an outdated, punitive-focused approach to drugs and individuals who use them.
Due to a shortage of dental care providers, an inequitable burden of preventable oral health disease persists for many Americans. While multiple strategies will be required to improve oral health, states can and should consider whether legal barriers unnecessarily hamper licensed dentists and allied dental providers from delivering more services to more patients.
The Network’s monthly reporter, Judicial Trends in Public Health (JTPH), highlights key court cases and relevant judicial trends in public health. The cases below are organized…
The Network’s monthly reporter, Judicial Trends in Public Health (JTPH), highlights key court cases and relevant judicial trends in public health. The cases below are organized…
