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Based at the Temple University Beasley School of Law, the Center for Public Health Law Research supports the widespread adoption of scientific tools and methods for mapping and evaluating the impact of law on health. It works by developing and teaching public health law research and legal epidemiology methods (including legal mapping and policy surveillance); researching laws and policies that improve health, increase access to care, and create or remove barriers to health (e.g., laws or policies that create or remove inequity); and communicating and disseminating evidence to facilitate innovation.
An armed guard surveys the grounds from the railing of a prison watchtower.

Surveying US Correctional Facilities’ Pandemic Policies on Medication for Opioid Use Disorder

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By Laura Hannon and Alex Willhouse 

An estimated 65 percent of the United States prison population has an active substance use disorder (SUD). Providing comprehensive substance use treatment to incarcerated individuals has been shown to reduce both drug use and crime upon release. Treatment is a critical intervention to prevent opioid overdose deaths, which the CDC estimates increased by 15.4 percent, from 70,029 in 2020 to approximately 80,816 in 2021. Medications like methadone, buprenorphine, and naltrexone are an important part of a comprehensive approach to addressing opioid use disorder (OUD).  

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Suboxone.

Prior Authorization Insurance Requirements: A Barrier to Accessing Lifesaving Treatment for Opioid Use Disorder?

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By Juan M. Hincapie-Castillo and Amie J. Goodin

Policies to mitigate the drug overdose crisis continue to fall short, as evidenced by increasing rates of opioid-involved overdoses and deaths in the United States. The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated this overdose crisis, and efforts are urgently needed to mitigate harm.

Individuals who have problematic opioid use are most frequently involved in opioid-involved overdoses, meaning that the use of a prescription opioid, or much more commonly a non-prescription opioid (such as non-medically sourced fentanyl or heroin), is used in a way that adversely affects the person’s life. Problematic opioid use may lead to a diagnosis of opioid use disorder (OUD). The medication buprenorphine has been proven to reduce opioid-involved overdose and harms and is one of few OUD treatments available as a prescription that can be dispensed by community pharmacies rather than from specialized facilities or specialty providers.

The federal government and several states have implemented strategies to improve and promote OUD treatment access, especially for the relatively inexpensive and effective medication buprenorphine. However, there are significant barriers that remain that preclude adequate and timely access to buprenorphine.

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Bill of Health - American currency (50, 100, 20) on a wooden table next to pills and spilling bottle of pharmaceuticals

Many Hospitals Receiving Discounted Drugs May Not Offer Patients Pharmaceutical Assistance

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By Amy Cook, JD, Jonathan Larsen, JD, MPP, and Sabrina Ruchelli, JD

Section 340B of the Public Health Service Act requires that pharmaceutical manufacturers give discounts on specified outpatient drugs to certain covered entities who typically serve low-income or otherwise underserved patients, including hospitals and clinics.

However, according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), there are no measures built into the program to assure that 340B program discounts are being used to support care for low-income populations, let alone to improve access to medicines discounted through the program.

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Serving trays with delicious food on table. Concept of school lunch.

New Data Reveal Sparse Protections for Students Who Cannot Pay for Meals at School

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By Temple University Center for Public Health Law Research

As a federal program to serve meals to all U.S. public school students during the COVID-19 pandemic ends on June 30, the consequences of unpaid school meal debt will resurface for the millions of students nationwide facing food insecurity.

New data released on LawAtlas.org capture details of state unpaid school meal policies and reveals sparse and variable protections for students who cannot pay for meals at school.

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San Diego CA 6-24-2020 Tourists eating at Mexican restaurant with waitress wearing mask in historic Old Town State Park.

Improving Job Quality and Scheduling Predictability Can Advance Public Health and Reduce Racial Inequities

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By DeAnna Baumle

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has thrown into sharp relief deeply rooted structural inequities in the United States. As U.S. government officials and media celebrate recent economic gains, women — especially women of color — are not recouping their economic losses. Further, the pandemic continues to kill nearly a thousand Americans daily and disproportionally affect Black, Indigenous, and Latinx communities. It is no accident that these communities have been left behind in the nation’s so-called recovery: racial capitalism has long excluded marginalized communities from economic and social gains.

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Emergency department entrance.

New Legal Mapping Method Highlights Recent Laws Limiting Public Health Emergency Orders

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By Katie Moran-McCabe

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, legislators in almost every state have introduced bills that would limit state executive authority to respond to the current pandemic or future public health emergencies. Between January 1, 2021, and November 5, 2021, one or more of these bills were enacted into law and became effective in 19 states.

This finding is a product of a new legal mapping method called Sentinel Surveillance of Emerging Laws and Policies (SSELP), developed by researchers from our Center for Public Health Law Research at Temple University (CPHLR), with support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

This mapping method is intended to quickly capture and track emerging laws and legal innovations impacting public health, and to instigate faster evaluation of their effects on health and health equity.

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Abortion rights protest following the Supreme Court decision for Whole Women's Health in 2016

A ‘Middle Ground’ in the Legal Abortion Debate Disproportionately Harms Marginalized Communities

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By Adrienne R. Ghorashi, Esq.

All eyes are on SCOTUS after the Court heard oral arguments on Mississippi’s 15-week abortion ban in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization and issued narrow rulings in cases related to Texas SB8 early this month. The line of questioning, as well as the Court’s continued decision to allow most abortions in Texas to come to a screeching halt, are a distressing signal that abortion rights are in immediate danger. Under Roe and Casey, bans on abortion prior to fetal viability (around 24 weeks) are a violation of a pregnant person’s constitutional right. While some have characterized Chief Justice Robert’s comments as searching for a supposed compromise to overturning Roe, this proposition ignores the stark reality of the legal landscape of abortion in the United States.

Pre-viability abortion bans, such as the one in Dobbs, already exist in 25 states, ranging from bans at any point in pregnancy, to 6-week “fetal heartbeat” bans, to the more common 20-week ban. Pre-viability abortion bans can also include “reason-based” bans that seek to prohibit abortion based on a person’s reason for seeking one. Many of these states have more than one type of abortion ban in their laws. Although most of the more extreme pre-viability bans are not currently in effect due to court rulings (with Texas SB8 being a frightening harbinger of a post-Roe nation), this legal standard is precisely what’s at stake in Dobbs.

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Police car.

New Data Highlights Complexity of Good Samaritan Overdose Law Landscape

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By David Momjian

Since 1999, over 800,000 people have died from a drug overdose in the United States, with more than half of those deaths (500,000) resulting from opioid overdose.

Additionally, all 50 states have experienced a spike in overdose deaths in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. In the 12-month period ending in May 2020, 81,000 drug overdose deaths occurred in the United States; the highest number of overdose deaths ever recorded in a 12-month period.

To combat the rising death toll from drug overdoses, 47 state legislatures and the District of Columbia have passed Good Samaritan laws (GSLs) to protect bystanders from criminal prosecution if they call for medical assistance during a drug overdose. Bystanders to a drug overdose are often worried that by calling for help, they could be arrested for drug possession or evicted by the police, who often arrive first at the scene of a 911 call, even if it is a medical emergency.

A new dataset built by the Center for Public Health Law Research at Temple University’s Beasley School of Law and funded by Vital Strategies, covers the evolution of GSLs in the United States from January 1, 2007, to June 1, 2021.

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Houses.

New Data on Eviction Laws Opens Doors for Evaluation

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Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, there was an eviction crisis in the United States. Estimates suggest landlords across the country file 3.7 million eviction cases each year — leaving considerable impacts on health and well-being in their wake. 

The eviction process is regulated by a patchwork of state/territory and local laws and court rules that govern the judicial process, but little is known about the ways in which these laws affect the likelihood of evictions.  

A new database, launched by the Legal Services Corporation (LSC) in partnership with the Center for Public Health Law Research, captures the entire eviction legal process, from pre-filing to post-judgment, in different communities around the country.  

The data provide early insights, including: 

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Rows of gold post office boxes with one open mail box.

FDA Expands Medication Abortion Access During Pandemic, but State Barriers Remain

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By Adrienne R. Ghorashi, Esq.

Last week, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) suspended an in-person dispensing requirement for mifepristone for the duration of the COVID-19 pandemic, allowing patients to access medication abortion by mail.

Previously, the FDA REMS requirement mandated that mifepristone must be dispensed in person, forcing patients to travel to a clinic in order to pick up the medication. In light of the pandemic, the requirement would lead to unnecessary risks of COVID exposure for patients and providers, in addition to imposing logistical and financial burdens.

This FDA decision is the latest development in a battle that made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this year. In its first abortion decision since Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined the bench, the Supreme Court reinstated the in-person dispensing requirement after it had previously been blocked by a federal district court in Maryland due to the risks of COVID-19.

Advocates for abortion access are celebrating the FDA decision as a win for science and evidence-based policy rooted in a growing body of research on the benefits of medication abortion and telemedicine for abortion.

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