The Network for Public Health Law (NPHL) has issued five new public health resources that can be read and accessed below.
A User’s Guide to Legislative Health Notes: A Step-By-Step Guide for Researchers and Policy Analysts
The Health Impact Project—a collaboration of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and The Pew Charitable Trusts—developed “health notes” to help policymakers understand the health implications of proposed legislation using this policy analysis tool. The notes consist of brief, objective, nonpartisan summaries outlining a bill’s potential positive and negative health effects, drawing on the best available peer-reviewed research, scientific data, and public health expertise to illuminate the ways it might improve or harm constituent health, with an emphasis on disproportionate impacts on specific populations. This step-by-step guide shows researchers and policy analysts how to conduct health notes.
Lessons from the 2020 Election Cycle
NPHL has joined with public health law partners to produce a new report,
COVID-19 Policy Playbook: Legal Recommendations for a Safer, More Equitable Future, examining policy challenges and opportunities in light of the pandemic. In this Q&A, Dawn Hunter, deputy director of the NPHL Southeastern Region Office, discusses some of the key elements in the chapter she authored, "Lessons from the 2020 Election Cycle," for the Report.
Social Determinants of Health Legislation: Opportunities for a New Future
Since as early as 2008, we have known the integral role the Social Determinants of Health (SDOHs) play in health outcomes. However, it was not until 2020 that Congress acknowledged public health’s important role in “working across sectors on social determinants of health” and funded an SDOH pilot program. Although the project is a step in the right direction, we must also support policies and legislation that directly addresses the SDOHs, including the Improving Social Determinants of Health Act of 2021 recently reintroduced to the House of Representatives.
Public Health Law News Roundup
Some of the public health law and policy issues in the headlines in recent weeks include the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s move to ban menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars; President Biden’s plan to strengthen America's digital infrastructure; new federal guidelines to increase access to an important opioid use disorder treatment; threats and harassment directed at public health officials due to COVID-19; the corrosive impact of racism on the health of Black Americans; how public health can be improved by addressing climate change; and Oregon’s newly passed legislation designed to help prevent youth suicide.
Despite repeated attacks by opponents in the past 10 years, the ACA has not only survived – it has thrived. Because of the law, millions of people gained insurance coverage for the first time. Millions more have increased security when insured, benefitting from prohibitions on discrimination by insurers and protections for people with preexisting conditions. In this commentary, Sarah Somers, J.D., M.P.H., managing attorney at the NPHL Southeastern Region Office, reflects on a decade of significant events and greatest successes in the ACA’s history, and provides a preview of things to come.
Read more.