The Centers for Law and the Public’s Health and its personnel are involved in a number of initiatives, projects, conferences, and events, as selectively summarized below.

For additional information about the varied efforts of the Centers and its personnel, please see prior editions of the Centers’ newsletter, Center Insights. These newsletters provide articles, updates, and information about public health law and other interests of the Centers and its personnel. To review indexes from each newsletter and obtain PDF copies, click here.

  • As a CDC collaborating center with CDC’s Public Health Law Program, the Centers was pleased to participate in the CDC/ASLME 2008 National Summit on Obesity Prevention on June 18-20, 2008 in Atlanta, GA. Invited participants focused on various legal interventions to address obesity in the United States and internationally.
  • Together with CDC’s Public Health Law Program and CDC’s Division of Tuberculosis Elimination, the Centers announces a series of collaborative projects on tuberculosis control laws and policies, including a comprehensive review of select jurisdictions’ express TB control laws and development of a handbook on TB control laws and policies. For more information, please link here.
  • Together with the CDC Division of Adolescent and School Health and Public Health Law Program, the Centers announces the availability of the Report entitled “A CDC Review of School Laws and Policies Concerning Child and Adolescent Health” which is now published as a Special Issue of the Journal of School Health (Volume 78), February 2008. Using the coordinated school health program model as a framework, the Report examines laws and policies concerning the health of children and adolescents in schools. It is intended to help practitioners and policymakers in public health and education at the federal, state, tribal, and local levels enhance their knowledge of relevant laws and policies.
  • Together with CDC’s Public Health Law Program, the Centers is pleased to note the publication of the official proceedings of the 2007 National Summit on Public Health Legal Preparedness: The National Action Agenda for Public Health Legal Preparedness as a special supplement of the Journal of Law, Medicine and Ethics. This issue features the contributions of Centers colleagues, including James G. Hodge, Jr., Executive Director, and Senior Scholars, Kristine Gebbie and David Fidler.
  • The Centers‘ publication of a Symposium Issue on Global Health Law, Ethics, and Policy in the Journal of Law, Medicine, and Ethics is now available online. This Symposium issue of the Journal brought together established and emerging scholars from across the globe to present their views and insights on a range of topics concerning global health law, ethics, and policy.  Multiple Centers colleagues contributed to this issue, including co-editors Lawrence O. Gostin, Director, and James G. Hodge, Jr.  Additional Center colleagues published their scholarly articles in this issue, including Stephen P. Teret, Director; Jon Vernick, Associate Director; Lainie Rutkow, Senior Fellow; Senior Scholars Peter Jacobson,  David Fidler, and Sara Rosenbaum, and Scholar Lance Gable.
  • The Centers was awarded a CDC grant to serve as a “CDC Collaborating Center for Public Health Legal Preparedness,” beginning October 1, 2007. This five-year award, made through CDC’s Public Health Law Program, supports the Center’s work to (1) develop information on public health legal preparedness through original research and analysis, (2) disseminate information to target audiences for their use in improving public health legal preparedness, and (3) develop and disseminate related training and learning materials.
  • Together with authors from the World Bank (Katharina Gamharter and Rudolph Van Puymbroeck), Centers colleagues Lance Gable, Lawrence O. Gostin, and James G. Hodge, Jr., have published their book, Legal Aspects of HIV/AIDS: A Guide for Policy and Law Reform. This text summarizes key legal and policy issues for 65 wide-ranging topics related to HIV/AIDS in a concise format useful for policy makers, HIV/AIDS practitioners, lawyers, the media and others seeking clear, precise information.  The Guide provides relevant “practice examples” (citing from actual laws and regulations globally) and offers selective lists of references.  
  • For information and the most current updates of state legislative activity related to the Turning Point Model State Public Health Act [as of 8/15/07] and the Centers Model State Emergency Health Powers Act [as of 7/15/06], click here.
  • Working with James G. Hodge, Jr., JD, LLM, and others, the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws (NCCUSL) has recently approved 2 new sections on civil liability protections and workers’ compensation benefits for volunteers as part of its Uniform Emergency Volunteer Health Practitioners Act (with Commentary) during its 2007 annual conference. For more information, please link here.
  • The Centers presented its findings from its CDC-funded project, Assessing Legal Preparedness for School Closure in Response to Pandemic Flu or other Emergencies, at the 2007 Local, State, and Federal Public Health Preparedness Summit on February 22, 2007. For more information, including a link to the Center’s Powerpoint presentation, please link here
  • The Centers and CDC’s Division of STD Prevention,
    National Center for HIV, STD and TB Prevention, released their
    comprehensive analyses of the Legal Status of Expedited Partner
    Therapies     (across jurisdictions). EPT involves the direct delivery of
    medications or prescriptions by persons infected with certain STDs to
    their at risk sexual partners. For more information, please link here.
  • The Centers celebrated its WHO/PAHO Collaborating Center
    status with a scholarly event at Georgetown University Law Center. PAHO
    Director General Dr. Mirta Roses Periago addressed the assemblage. Also
    featured were special presentations on HIV/AIDS and human rights by Dr.
    Chris Beyrer, Director, Johns Hopkins Center for Public Health and
    Human Rights, and panel presentations by Centers Senior Scholars, Professors
    David Fidler and Scott Burris, and Javier Vasquez, Human Rights
    Specialist, PAHO. For more information, please link here.
  • Coinciding with CDC’s recent Revised Recommendations for
    HIV Testing of Adults, Adolescents, and Pregnant Women in Health-Care
    Settings    , the Centers has released for public dissemination its Report,
    Advancing HIV Prevention Initiative – A Limited Legal Analysis of State
    HIV Statutes    , prepared in September 2004 for CDC. This document
    provides an analyses of key statutory provisions affecting HIV
    prevention in the United States (as of 2004). To access a PDF copy of
    the Report, click here.
  • The most current draft of the ESAR-VHP Legal and Regulatory
    Issues Report    , developed for ASPR by the Centers, is available online in
    PDF format. This Report addresses key legal and regulatory issues
    concerning the deployment and use of volunteer healthcare practitioners
    for all 50 states. It also includes multiple informative tables. For
    more information and links to the Report as well as the Centers’
    ESAR-VHP Advanced Tool Kit, click here.