Cutting-Edge Legal Preparedness for Chronic Disease Prevention

Program Overview

scalesCDC is working with partners across the country to meet the public health challenges of the 21st century. CDC's four overarching Health Protection Goals focus on healthy people, healthy places, preparedness, and global health.

The preparedness goal is to protect people in all communities from such "urgent threats" as potential influenza pandemic or terrorist attack and also against such "urgent realities" as heart disease, cancer, stroke, and diabetes, among the top causes of death in the U.S. CDC works closely with city, county and state health departments to address this spectrum of health threats. These "partners in preparedness" use varying strategies and interventions generated from front-line experience and scientific research.

Increasing attention is being given to the use of law that supports sound, science-based public health interventions. CDC's Public Health Law Program is working to improve understanding of the four core elements of public health legal preparedness, (1) laws, (2) competency in applying law, (3) coordination in implementing legal interventions, and (4) public health law best practices. CDC’s National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion has extensive experience with legal and policy interventions and has published a framework for using law as a public health strategy.

New York City is one of the nation’s leading cities in using law to address chronic diseases. The November 29 Public Health Grand Rounds program will feature four case studies of New York City’s legal innovations in:

  • Phasing out artificial trans fats in restaurants and other food-service establishments
  • An effort to require that certain restaurants post calorie information on their menus and menu boards
  • Requiring that laboratories report the results of blood-sugar level tests to the health department, and
  • The 2002 law to prohibit smoking in virtually all workplaces.

The distinguished faculty will bring scientific, public health practice, and legal perspectives to bear in each panel.

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New York City panelists who were instrumental in crafting and implementing these efforts will discuss the initiatives. They will describe, among other things, considerations that led to the selection of law-based interventions, the perspective and role of elected officials, public engagement in the policy-making process, and interactions with businesses and health care providers in the policy-making and implementation stages.

Members of the second panel will explore potential implications and “lessons learned” from the New York City experience for cities, counties, and other jurisdictions throughout the country. The panel will review “lessons learned” and comment on factors that may influence the adaptability of New York City’s innovations in other communities.Panelists will also outline key features of the broader legal context in which public health laws operate.

Goals

The two principal goals of this Public Health Grand Rounds program are to: a) illuminate how law can address the “urgent realities” of chronic diseases in the 21st century, and b) to illustrate the practical relevance of “public health legal preparedness” and its four core elements, to the full spectrum of public health goals and strategies.

Learning Objectives

  • Define "public health legal preparedness" and explain its core elements
  • Describe four local laws to prevent or control chronic disease specific to: consumption of trans fats, publication of the caloric content of restaurant food, improving surveillance of diabetes, and reducing exposure to secondhand smoke
  • Explain key challenges and factors public health officials, elected officials, and boards of health weigh when considering adoption of such laws.

Who Should Take Part

This Public Health Grand Rounds program will speak directly to the priorities of many public health policy makers and practitioners at all levels, as well as to those of public health proponents, including:

  • Executive directors, medical directors, and program directors and managers in local, state, tribal, and provincial health departments
  • Elected and appointed public health policy makers (e.g., city council members, county commissioners, state legislators, and members of local and state boards of health)
  • Legal counsel to public health agencies (e.g., in-house and contract counsel, assistant attorneys general)
  • Leaders of community-based and faith-based organizations working for better community health.