The Network for Public Health Law (NPHL) has issued five new public health resources that can be read and accessed below.
The Ongoing Racial Paradox of the Medicaid Program
This article published in the most recent issue of the
Journal of Health and Life Sciences Law reviews the history of the Medicaid program, from its inception during the civil rights era to the present day. The article also examines how, while being the largest public health insurance program for low-income people and expanding coverage to millions of adults, the Medicaid program has perpetuated racial disparities.
Pivoting to Telehealth: Lessons Learned about Treating Under-Resourced Patients During the Early Days of the COVID-19 Pandemic – and Beyond
In the early days of the pandemic, in-person health care visits were curtailed and health care providers had to quickly pivot to telehealth services to ensure access to care for patients. However, the shift to telehealth imposed new barriers to care. One non-profit mobilized during the pandemic to address these barriers and deliver telehealth services, and is now working to identify operational, legal, and policy challenges to virtual care and create a framework for long-term sustainability of telehealth.
Pain in the Nation 2022: U.S. Experienced Highest Ever Combined Rates of Deaths Due to Alcohol, Drugs, and Suicide During the First Year of the COVID-19 Pandemic
This report, published by Trust for America's Health and Well Being Trust, notes that deaths associated with alcohol, drugs, and suicide took the lives of 186,763 Americans in 2020, a 20 percent one-year increase in the combined death rate and the highest number of substance misuse deaths ever recorded for a single year. The report found that these deaths disproportionally harmed young people and people of color. The report includes recommendations for steps the federal, state, and local governments should take to begin to reverse the deaths of despair crisis.
The FDA’s Proposed Rules Prohibiting Menthol in Cigarettes and All Characterizing Flavors in Cigars Will Advance Public Health and Health Equity
Big Tobacco has historically targeted youth, the LGBTQ+ community, and African Americans with tailored marketing campaigns for menthol tobacco products. Menthol is a flavor additive that reduces the harshness and irritation of smoking, and enhances the addictive effects of nicotine in the brain. Similarly, it increases the chances that youth who begin smoking will habitually use these products. On April 28, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) took an important step toward advancing health equity by announcing two proposed rules that will reduce tobacco-related health disparities.
Many states introduced or passed laws that restricted the ability of state and local public health officials, governors, and others to respond to the immediate threat of COVID-19 (including emergency orders, vaccinations, masking, and closures), as well as future public health threats. This resource, NPHL's latest 50 State Survey, details COVID-19-related laws and pending legislation, and broader enacted and proposed limitations on public health authority in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Read more.
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