Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law
Scott Burris, JD •
Center for Public Health Law Research
Jonathan Larsen, JD, MPP •
Center for Public Health Law Research
Elizabeth Platt, Esq. •
Center for Public Health Law Research
This project brings together researchers from the Center for Public Health Law Research and the Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law, to identify a series of 84 actionable steps for government at all levels to improve and align drug policy in the United States.
The increase in serious opioid use disorder (OUD) and overdose deaths in the United States requires a response that coordinates multiple levels of government to mobilize their resources and expertise in an aligned and efficient fashion.
This longitudinal dataset captures laws addressing authority to respond to public health emergencies that were enacted between May 21, 2022, and September 23, 2024, in all 50 US states and the District of Columbia.
Published in the American Journal of Public Health, this article written by staff at the Center for Public Health Law Research identifies and categorizes US state legislation introduced between January 1, 2021, and May 20, 2022 that addresses emergency health authority. The COVID-19 pandemic called for quick, decisive action to limit infections, and when the next outbreak hits, new laws limiting health authority may make such action even more difficult.
State laws setting the scope and limits of emergency authority are crucial to an effective public health response. This suite of legal data captures details of legislation that addresses emergency health authority introduced between January 1, 2021, and May 20, 2022, in all 50 US states and the District of Columbia.
On June 24, 2022, the US Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization overturned nearly 50 years of precedent protecting the right to an abortion prior to viability. Under Roe v. Wade, the legal landscape of abortion was a complex patchwork of state laws and court decisions regulating access to the procedure. The Dobbs decision further compromised abortion access by allowing states to ban all or most abortions.
President Biden made big headlines by pardoning federal violations of simple cannabis possession, citing that “too many lives have been upended because of our failed approach to marijuana." But will the decision really move the needle? Scott Burris, Professor of Law at Temple University’s Beasley School of Law, examines the ripple effects of Biden’s announcement, and dives into the implications of how controlled substances, specifically marijuana, are scheduled by the federal government and states.
Intimate partner violence is a preventable public health problem affecting more than 12 million people in the United States annually. The immense burden of victimization is most often borne by women. Nearly one in two female homicide victims are killed by current or former partners (more than 50% of which involve firearms). Firearm-related morbidity and mortality are concentrated where firearm ownership is most prevalent and firearm laws are least restrictive, indicating the potential for law to serve as an intervention.
Director of Research and Operations, Elizabeth Platt, presented these slides at the NACCHO 360 Conference on July 20, 2022, with two other presenters including Katrina Forrest and Akeem Anderson from CityHealth.
CityHealth.org, an initiative of the de Beaumont Foundation and Kaiser Permanente, works to improve community health by advancing a package of evidence-based policies across the largest U.S. cities.
This research collected Financial Assistance Policies and related debt collection policies from a representative sample of 75 340B hospitals to better understand financial support for pharmaceuticals for low-income populations.
