Category B: Public Health Managers Working in Local, State, Territorial, and Tribal Health Departments - Well-enforced, comprehensive public health policies can increase health equity for populations bearing a disproportionate burden of chronic disease. We proposed to deliver legal and policy capacity-building assistance to Public Health Managers working in local, state, territorial, and Tribal health departments. Central to the use of law and policy to protect public health and advance health equity is the need for resources and training for public health professionals and advocates who are not lawyers themselves. These tools equip the public health workforce to better understand, develop, promote, implement, and defend strong public health laws. The Public Health Law Center provides timely, user-friendly assistance on public health legal issues throughout the U.S. With expertise on a broad range of public health policy issues, we have worked for two decades with public health departments and their partners in developing and implementing effective, evidence-based policy solutions rooted in community values in all fifty states, many Tribes, U.S. territories, and hundreds of municipalities around the country. We provide legal technical assistance on public health issues to Tribal, national, state, and local coalitions; health organizations; advocacy partners; government attorneys; and influential researchers and thought leaders. We propose to provide the following for Public Health Managers Working in Local, State, Territorial, and Tribal Health Departments: (1) increase availability and access to legal technical assistance to protect public health and advance health equity through effective policy development, implementation, & enforcement; (2) increase awareness of best public health law and policy practices; (3) increase use of legal technical assistance; and (4) enhance use and sharing of equitable and effective public health policy development, implementation, and enforcement. Communicating about complex legal topics in an accessible way with public health professionals is the core of our existing programming and an area in which we excel. For more than twenty years, the Public Health Law Center has provided legal and policy technical assistance (TA) on public health law and policy issues. We collaborate with others to advance health equity by working to reduce and eliminate commercial tobacco, promoting healthy food access, supporting physical activity, pursuing climate justice, and addressing other causes of chronic disease. We partner with Tribal health leaders, federal agencies, national health advocacy organizations, state and local governments, planners, researchers, attorneys, community coalitions, and individuals working on public health issues to create healthier communities around the country. In addition to identifying and implementing the best policy interventions and thinking creatively about how the law can be used to further public health goals, our legal TA will help partners: (1) identify ways to incorporate a health equity lens into public health policies by aligning community priorities with sound scientific research to determine the most effective, equity-focused policy interventions; (2) explain the potential consequences of policies that contain exceptions or unclear language, or may interact with other systems, in ways that could exacerbate or ignore existing disparities; and (3) compare how similar policies throughout the U.S. are implemented to achieve more equitable outcomes.
