Addressing the Need for Accountability in Public Health

The article calls for the public health community to examine who deter the issuance of deficiently supported recommendations by holding accountable public health officials who promote such recommendations. Topics discussed include advice public health advice that contradicts prevailing scientific evidence, mechanisms for accountability, and the need for self-regulation.

Judicial Review of Public Health Powers Since the Start of the COVID-19 Pandemic: Trends and Implications.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, officials in the United States at all levels of government utilized their legal authorities to impose a wide range of measures designed to control the spread of SARS-CoV-2 (severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2; the causative agent of COVID-19), including shutting down businesses, limiting the size of gatherings, requiring masking, and mandating vaccination. These orders and regulations were challenged in court cases that resulted in more than 1000 judicial decisions. Common claims were based on alleged procedural and substantive due process violations, violations of religious liberty, and violations of officials' scope of authority. In more than three fourths of the decisions, the court refused to grant the plaintiffs the relief sought. However, plaintiffs found success in several notable cases, especially in federal court. These recent decisions, as well as broader prepandemic trends, have important implications for public health officials' exercise of their public health powers, especially when those exercises implicate religious liberty. In this legal environment, officials may need to rely more on the powers of persuasion than on their legal authority alone. (Am J Public Health. 2023;113(3):280-287. https://doi.org/10.2105/10.2105/AJPH.2022.307181).

From the Shadows: The Public Health Implications of the Supreme Court's COVID-Free Exercise Cases.

This article analyzes the Supreme Court's "shadow docket" Free Exercise cases relating to COVID-19. The paper highlights the decline of deference, the impact of exemptions, and the implications of the new doctrine for vaccine and other public health laws.

A Public Health Perspective in the Times of COVID-19

(p. 941) and Chiu et al. ip. 943), respectively, point to positive responses, including social, systemic, and legal measures that seem to have slowed and minimized the spread of the new virus while boosting the capacity of their public health systems to lower the morbidity and mortality from COVID-19. Auerbach and Miller (p. 969) call for greater attention from policymakers, decision makers and care providers to preparing for the longer-term mental health consequences that the pandemic may have generally and specifically among people receiving or needing mental health care. [...]to respond to the pandemic as a matter of extreme urgency and yet not look away from other public health issues of importance, Williams (p. 927), Gromis and Liu (p. 1084), and Mellerson et al.

COVID-19: The First Posttruth Pandemic

Unless the public trusts that public health measures are grounded in the best available science, even if that science is incomplete and changing, individuals cannot be expected to follow public health recommendations, such as to shelter in place. Rapid cultural change and widening economic inequality have fueled increases in political polarization that cement loyalty to party over a shared search for truth.4 The stunning failure ofpublic officials and experts to predict and prevent the September 11 attacks and the 2008 fiscal crisis, and well-publicized miscues such as the rollout ofhealthcare.gov, have eroded faith in national leaders. "6 How can we expect the public to accept that science strives for truth when people read about retractions, faked studies, and even an entire blood testing company built on a lie? TRUST IN SCIENCE The good news is that trust in science remains high, at least relative to other institutions.7 Moreover, if we search for silver linings, COVID-19 could burst the posttruth bubble.