This week might have marked the beginning of summer, but many policymakers and health officials have their eye on the upcoming school year and what that might mean in terms of getting students vaccinated against COVID-19. According to a ...
Data reveals that nearly one third of COVID-19 patients experience one or more post-COVID conditions that linger for weeks or months after infection. The cause, duration, and potential treatments for these conditions are still being ...
As the number of COVID-19 vaccinations grows, some states are looking at their vaccination rates to determine when to loosen measures that mitigate the spread of COVID-19, such as venue capacity limits, business closure times, and masking ...
Though we’ve made progress on the number of HIV cases in the U.S, tens of thousands of Americans are diagnosed with HIV each year—a disproportionate number being people of color. In 2019, the federal government launched the Ending the HIV ...
As the COVID-19 Delta variant surges across the country, public and private employers have started instituting COVID-19 vaccination, testing, and masking protocols for their employees. On July 29, 2021 the White House announced that all ...
Increasing and maintaining vaccine coverage is an important way to prevent the spread of disease and keep communities healthy. This post is an overview of 2019 state vaccine legislative activities.
The introduction of highly effective antiviral treatments for hepatitis C in 2014 marks the first time we have been able to cure a major and highly-infectious virus. Despite the significant challenges of addressing a highly stigmatized ...
Recent legislation at both the state and federal levels has significantly affected the ability of healthcare providers to serve patients virtually and across state lines.
On Oct. 20, 2023, ASTHO submitted a response to a Request for Information from the U.S. Senate's Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee on the modernization of CDC.
States can use strategies like school vaccination requirements to help combat the spread of communicable diseases that have robust availability of a highly effective vaccine, such as measles.
Recent state laws and governor emergency orders prohibiting universal school mask protocols are complicating the implementation of CDC’s evidence-based guidance for COVID-19 mitigation measures for in-person school. Ten states have enacted ...
The National School Lunch Program, a federally-assisted meal program run by USDA, has provided millions of children with nutritionally balanced, low-cost or no-cost lunches each school day.
As governments and private entities adopt COVID-19 vaccine protocols to protect health and safety, legal challenges are mounting. In some states, policymakers have proactively attempted to limit or prohibit adopting COVID-19 vaccine ...
More than 100 rural hospitals have closed since 2010, and an additional 25% are at high risk of closure, and COVID-19 has magnified the existing stressors on rural healthcare. As a result, states are using a variety of measures to address ...
This Health Policy Update is an overview of state legislative activity to increase financial stability for families during the COVID-19 pandemic which may help to prevent adverse childhood experiences.
As we celebrate National Rural Health Day this year, we are reminded of how important telehealth can be for public health and healthcare. Telehealth can minimize challenges faced by rural patients and communities—such as transportation, ...
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 millions of COVID-19 cases later, states 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 health disparities, and the future of the ...
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 only to public schools but often to ...