Public Health Powers After COVID-19

This project will examine how shifts in the public health law landscape during COVID-19 may affect ongoing public health practice and legal modernization efforts in Congress and the states. Dr. Mello and her team will conduct a suite of research activities to: 1) reevaluate the balance between public health powers and individual liberty reflected in current emergency-powers laws and recommend modifications that may address shortcomings made obvious during COVID-19; 2) assess potential effects of state laws curtailing health officials’ emergency powers and litigation challenging COVID-19 health orders on public health powers in the post-pandemic era; and 3) investigate the extent to which public health officials in states where retrenchment of health officials’ authority has occurred are reducing their activities in key domains of public health promotion. The team will utilize a combination of legal analysis, legal epidemiology, secondary analysis of survey data of health officials, and primary analysis of qualitative data from focus groups with health officials.