ABSTRACT
Amid undulating conceptions of the role and prowess of federalism emerges its central constitutional role: protecting American liberties against unwarranted governmental intrusions. To the extent that federalism is used as a guise for withdrawing fundamental rights to abortion by the U.S. Supreme Court in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, individual rights are sacrificed in contravention of constitutional structural norms.
Subject(s)
Abortion, Induced , Public Health , Female , Humans , Pregnancy , GovernmentABSTRACT
As the United States emerges from the worst public health threat it has ever experienced, the Supreme Court is poised to reconsider constitutional principles from bygone eras. Judicial proposals to roll back rights under a federalism infrastructure grounded in states' interests threaten the nation's legal fabric at a precarious time. This column explores judicial shifts in 3 key public health contexts - reproductive rights, vaccinations, and national security - and their repercussions.
Subject(s)
Public Health , Reproductive Rights , Civil Rights , Humans , Supreme Court Decisions , United States , VaccinationSubject(s)
Advisory Committees , Disaster Planning , Guidelines as Topic , Standard of Care/legislation & jurisprudence , Disease Outbreaks/legislation & jurisprudence , Humans , Mass Casualty Incidents/legislation & jurisprudence , National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine, U.S., Health and Medicine Division , Natural Disasters , United StatesABSTRACT
In a dynamic term of the United States Supreme Court in 2021-2022 a series of critical cases raise manifold changes and impacts on individual and communal health through 10 key areas ranging from abortions to vaccinations.
Subject(s)
Abortion, Induced , Public Health , Pregnancy , Female , Humans , Supreme Court DecisionsSubject(s)
Commerce , Communicable Disease Control/legislation & jurisprudence , Coronavirus Infections/epidemiology , Pneumonia, Viral/epidemiology , Public Policy/legislation & jurisprudence , Betacoronavirus , COVID-19 , Coronavirus Infections/prevention & control , Economics , Employment/legislation & jurisprudence , Freedom , Humans , Liability, Legal , Pandemics/prevention & control , Pneumonia, Viral/prevention & control , Public Health , SARS-CoV-2 , United States/epidemiologySubject(s)
COVID-19 , COVID-19/epidemiology , Emergencies , Humans , Pandemics , Public Health , Standard of CareABSTRACT
COVID-19 transmission among students, faculty, and staff at US institutions of higher education (IHEs) is a pressing concern, especially with the dominance of the highly contagious Delta variant and emergence of the Omicron variant. From the start of the pandemic to May 26, 2021, >700,000 cases were linked to US colleges and universities. To protect their populations and surrounding communities, IHE administrators are increasingly considering COVID-19 vaccine requirements. Roughly one-quarter of the nearly 4,000 college and university campuses across the US have announced COVID-19 vaccine mandates for students or employees. However, deciding to require vaccination is only the first of multiple decisions, as IHEs face complex issues of how to design and refine their mandates, including whether to require boosters. Mandates vary significantly in stringency, implementation, impact on members of the college or university community, and net benefit to the institution. This essay examines 10 key questions that an IHE must face in designing or refining a COVID-19 vaccination mandate. Showing that these 10 questions were carefully considered may be crucial if the institution's mandate is challenged. Ultimately, how an IHE designs its mandate may make the difference between meaningful risk mitigation that advances institutional goals and benefits students, faculty, and staff versus a public health failure that erodes trust, raises equity concerns, threatens to undermine preexisting vaccination requirements, and divides the campus.
ABSTRACT
A series of denialist state laws thwart efficacious public health emergency response efforts despite escalating impacts of the spread of the Delta variant during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Subject(s)
COVID-19 , Humans , Pandemics , Public Health , SARS-CoV-2ABSTRACT
Immunizing hundreds of millions against COVID- 19 through the most extensive national vaccine campaign ever undertaken in the United States has generated significant law and policy challenges.
Subject(s)
COVID-19 , Vaccines , COVID-19 Vaccines , Humans , SARS-CoV-2 , United States , VaccinationABSTRACT
The fight for public health primacy in U.S. emergency preparedness and response to COVID-19 centers on which level of government - federal or state - should "call the shots" to quell national emergencies?
Subject(s)
COVID-19 , Disaster Planning , Emergencies , Humans , Public Health , SARS-CoV-2 , United StatesABSTRACT
Escalating demands for limited food supplies at America's food banks and pantries during the COVID-19 pandemic have raised ethical concerns underlying "first-come, first-served" distributions strategies. A series of model ethical principles are designed to guide ethical allocations of these resources to assure greater access among persons facing food insecurity.
Subject(s)
Disaster Planning , Food Assistance/ethics , Guidelines as Topic , Resource Allocation/ethics , COVID-19/epidemiology , Emergencies , Food Assistance/organization & administration , Food Supply , Humans , Public Health , Resource Allocation/organization & administration , United StatesABSTRACT
Public health emergencies have the potential to place enormous strain on health systems. The current pandemic of the novel 2019 coronavirus disease has required hospitals in numerous countries to expand their surge capacity to meet the needs of patients with critical illness. When even surge capacity is exceeded, however, principles of critical care triage may be needed as a means to allocate scarce resources, such as mechanical ventilators or key medications. The goal of a triage system is to direct limited resources towards patients most likely to benefit from them. Implementing a triage system requires careful coordination between clinicians, health systems, local and regional governments, and the public, with a goal of transparency to maintain trust. We discuss the principles of tertiary triage and methods for implementing such a system, emphasizing that these systems should serve only as a last resort. Even under triage, we must uphold our obligation to care for all patients as best possible under difficult circumstances.