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PHLP has released version three of the Public Health Emergency Law and Forensic Epidemiology training materials on CD-ROM. Please click on the banner above for more information.


Public Health Grand Rounds
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Public Health Emergency
Legal Preparedness Clearinghouse

The resources below are selected  tools developed by the CDC Public Health Law Program and partners for professionals' and policy makers' use in strengthening their organizations’ and jurisdictions’ legal preparedness for all-hazards public health emergencies.





Cross Sector Collaboration Tools
The CDC / Bureau of Justice Assistance "Public Health and Law Enforcement Emergency Preparedness Workgroup" has released two tools designed to improve cross-sectoral and cross-jurisdictional preparedness for public health emergencies. The first, “A Framework for Improving Cross-Sector Coordination for Emergency Preparedness and Response: Action Steps for Public Health, Law Enforcement, Corrections, and the Judiciary,” details background on and opportunities for strengthening cross-sectoral and cross-jurisdictional emergency preparedness. The second is a guide for developing a memorandum of understanding for coordinated cross-sector implementation of community response measures to contagious respiratory diseases such as influenza.

More information and available documents  

Dismissal of School Children in the Context of Pandemic Influenza
In response to national pandemic preparedness priorities, CDC commissioned the independent Centers for Law and the Public's Health: A Collaborative at Johns Hopkins and Georgetown Universities to review the state-level legal framework for reducing the density of school classrooms, with specific focus on closure of schools, as a social distancing or social mitigation measure to slow the spread of an H5N1 influenza pandemic or similar highly contagious infectious disease. The Centers’ researchers restricted their scope of inquiry to laws adopted at the state level and to laws that expressly address school closure. (The study did not address any relevant laws adopted at the local level, nor did it address any relevant general laws.) The Centers’ report Legal Preparedness for School Closures in Response to Pandemic Influenza and Other Emergencies presents a summary description of the express state laws reviewed by the researchers as of late 2006, together with the authors' observations about those laws (click here to view the report). The report is also accessible on the federal government's comprehensive pandemic influenza website (http://www.pandemicinfluenza.gov) and on the Centers' website (http://www.publichealthlaw.net).

In the News

Our smog is worse than we thought
Toronto Star     (12/06/08)     Moira Welsh
http://www.thestar.com/article/549457

A bylaw approved by the Toronto (Canada) City Council will require businesses to report emissions of 25 identified chemicals. Most of the chemicals on the "right to know" list -- including benzene, cadmium, hexavalent chromium, and nickel -- are thought to be carcinogens, and almost all have been identified in Toronto air above accepted health standards. Public health researchers used data collected from four Environment Canada air-monitoring stations across the city to develop the list. "Most of us know that Toronto's air is bad to breathe, especially in the summer, "said Katrina Miller, spokeswoman for the Toronto Environmental Alliance.
more


  Mutual Aid
A comprehensive "checklist" of provisions and resources for Mutual Aid agreements.
Mutual Aid
The CDC Public Health Law News
A free monthly digest of news on public health law and policy, mailed to your email account.
The News
Portfolio of Public Health Law Bench Books
A collection of public health law bench books.
Portfolio.
National Action Agenda for Public Health Legal Preparedness
Improving public health jurisdictions’ legal preparedness for public health emergencies
National Action Agenda.
 
       

 
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