In 1938, the US Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) instituted a nationwide minimum wage rate that sets a minimum hourly payment amount for qualified employees across the country. Established at 25 cents per hour, it has since been increased 22 times. Congress last raised the federal minimum wage rate on July 24, 2009 to $7.25, which is roughly $15,000 per year for a 40-hour work week.
This study, published in the American Journal of Public Health, collected and characterized all statutes and regulations effective from 1998 through 2011 governing the operation of prescription monitoring programs. As of 2011, 10 states required PMPs to report suspicious activity to law enforcement, while only three required reporting to the patient’s physician. None required linkage to drug treatment or required all prescribers to review PMP data before prescribing. Few explicitly address data retention.
Illegal drug use is a persistent problem, prescription drug abuse is on the rise, and there is clinical evidence that drug use reduces driving performance. This study describes trends in characteristics of drivers involved in fatal motor vehicle crashes who test positive for drugs, and finds that the profile of a drugged driver has changed substantially over time. An increasing share of these drivers is now testing positive for prescription drugs, cannabis, and multiple drugs.
State foodborne illness laws regulate which illnesses need to be reported, the timeframe for reporting, and which agencies must then be informed of the illness and/or outbreak. This LawAtlas dataset focuses on state laws relating to foodborne illness surveillance and outbreak response, including the reporting requirements for several of the most common foodborne diseases.
The map identifies the variations in the different laws, including whether cyberbullying is included in the state’s definition of bullying, where the law applies, which laws offer civil immunity for individuals reporting bullying incidents, and whether the laws identify a protected class of students.
Oregon Public Health Division/Multnomah County Health Department
Marizen Ramirez, PhD, MPH •
University of Minnesota
This webinar examines the anti-bullying laws in two states: Oregon and Iowa. These states’ laws are the focus of two Public Health Law Research studies investigating the extent to which school districts have adopted anti-bullying policies in response to these laws, and the impact these policies may have on reducing bullying in schools.
This commentary discusses some of the overarching themes encountered throughout the development of a database of state legal provisions relating to foodborne illness surveillance and response.
University of Illinois at Chicago, PHLR Methods Core
Beau Kilmer, PhD •
RAND
Rosalie Pacula, PhD •
RAND
This study offers lessons learned from alcohol and tobacco regulation. The researchers recommend that if states decide to experiment with marijuana policy, they should prevent retail price drops, limit marketing, and work hard to measure and prevent impaired driving. They also note the importance of adopting a state monopoly, restricting and monitoring licenses for use and distribution, restricting public consumption, and limiting the types of products sold.
This Policy Guide is a resource that public health laboratory directors and their colleagues can use as they explore legal and other policy questions related to state public health laboratories’ sharing test services with each other.
In their Critical Opportunities presentation, Ryan Cramer and Lauren Slive suggest strengthening the HIPAA Privacy Rule by adopting the Health Information Technology and Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act. The HITECH provision allows patients to demand that confidentiality be maintained when services are paid for in full out-of-pocket.
