The overall purpose of Project Arm 2 is to create a translatable evidence base for the impact of law, policy, and ethical standards upon public health preparedness and response systems. Several representative states were selected based on the structure of their public health system, types of disaster experience, geography, and population size. The laws of each state were coded to denote the actions each PHS agent was directed to undertake. The analysis revealed extreme variability in the legal structure undergirding our nation's preparedness and response capacity. Systematically coding the laws and mapping state PHS emergency preparedness and response capacity visually demonstrates network strengths and weaknesses and provides policy makers opportunities to draw upon the disaster experience and legislative response of other states, and thus improve emergency preparedness and response capacity in their state...
The work of LEIP has resulted in the development of several tools, all of which are currently in the draft stage. Click here for more information about these tools.
Legal Networks Analyzer (LENA) – an interactive mapping tool to visual state laws related to radiological/nuclear incidents as compared to the National Response Framework guidelines in the nuclear incident annex
Emergency Law Database – a searchable database of all laws directing 26 PHS agents in seven states across the country
The formal specific aims for Project Arm 2 as stated in the application to the CDC are:
- Develop a comprehensive inventory of the legal and ethical factors impacting the PHS' ability to prepare for and respond to an emergency with public health consequences
- Test the impact of identified legal and ethical constraints upon the PHS' ability to prepare for and respond to an emergency with public health consequences
- Develop empirically based model statements of laws, policies, and ethics that can be integrated into the field to improve the PHS' ability to prepare for and respond to an emergency with public health consequences
- Develop strategies for communicating, disseminating, and translating the result of this research into policy and practice