On June 30, 2020, a group of public health and science organizations issued a letter urging Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Azar to maintain the Public Health Emergency Declaration ...
There are a number of court cases playing out across the country that could affect the options state and territorial health officials have to limit the spread of disease and promote health and ...
In anticipation of the upcoming presidential election in November, the Republican and Democratic National Committees released their platforms. These platforms provide an overview of values, policies, ...
Several states and territories, as well as many local governments, are going beyond recommendations and requiring individuals to wear face coverings when they are in public settings and spaces (i.e. ...
Reconciling the tension between public health and civil liberties is one of the most significant challenges of public health law and ethics. The Supreme Court of the United States historically upheld ...
States and territories have broad powers to protect public health and safety, including powers to prevent and control the spread of communicable disease typically exercised by state and territorial ...
As COVID-19 emerged and spread in the U.S., people working and residing in long-term care facilities have experienced a significant burden of COVID-19 cases and deaths. As of Oct. 8, deaths ...
Anticipating a rapid deployment of COVID-19 vaccines as they are authorized, the CDC developed COVID-19 Vaccination Program Operational Guidance in collaboration with state and local jurisdictions to ...
Many pharmaceutical companies urgently began developing a COVID-19 vaccine earlier this year to reduce the spread of the virus as the threat of a pandemic loomed. Fast forward several months and ...
As a truly historic year comes to an end, many public health policy issues received a considerable amount of attention in 2020. Subjects such as the pandemic that will live on in infamy, racial ...
Conditioning school attendance on student vaccinations is an evidence-based way of maintaining and increasing vaccine coverage. State law establishes school vaccination requirements which apply not ...
Under the Tenth Amendment, states have the power to protect the health and welfare of their populations, including the authority to implement isolation and quarantine orders to limit the spread of ...
On Aug. 23, 2021, the FDA announced full approval of Pfizer and BioNTech’s mRNA vaccine for COVID-19. ASTHO has answers to five key questions about the approval and what it means for state and ...
With many of the state and territorial legislatures reconvening over the next few weeks, we can look forward to new (and not-so-new) legislation start to crop up that will impact public health. To ...
Vaccines are one of the greatest public health achievements of the last century, as well as some of the most powerful and cost-effective tools to prevent disease, disparities, disability, and death ...
During the COVID-19 pandemic, public health authority has been used to require the use of face masks and encourage social distancing, and other measures. In several states these legal authorities ...
A discussion with Meredith Allen, ASTHO’s Vice President for Health Security, about how the first shipments of the COVID-19 vaccinations have been a major turning point for the pandemic and a ...
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, states are using their emergency powers to authorize a variety of social distancing measures. This post is a summary of executive orders that have led to the ...
On March 15, 2023, ASTHO announced a jointly-authored article on state and territorial emergency powers since the COVID-19 pandemic has been published in Journal of Emergency Management.