On June 24, 2022, the US Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization overturned nearly 50 years of precedent protecting the right to an abortion prior to viability. Under Roe v. Wade, the legal landscape of abortion was a complex patchwork of state laws and court decisions regulating access to the procedure. The Dobbs decision further compromised abortion access by allowing states to ban all or most abortions.
The Center for Public Health Law Research is home to one of the leading research teams focused on understanding the role and effects of laws related to sexual and reproductive health on population health, well-being, and equity. The Center’s resources reflect the varied and ever-changing landscape of regulations and restrictions on abortion, access to contraception, and other issues related to sexual and reproductive health in the United States and worldwide.
President Biden made big headlines by pardoning federal violations of simple cannabis possession, citing that “too many lives have been upended because of our failed approach to marijuana." But will the decision really move the needle? Scott Burris, Professor of Law at Temple University’s Beasley School of Law, examines the ripple effects of Biden’s announcement, and dives into the implications of how controlled substances, specifically marijuana, are scheduled by the federal government and states.
Intimate partner violence is a preventable public health problem affecting more than 12 million people in the United States annually. The immense burden of victimization is most often borne by women. Nearly one in two female homicide victims are killed by current or former partners (more than 50% of which involve firearms). Firearm-related morbidity and mortality are concentrated where firearm ownership is most prevalent and firearm laws are least restrictive, indicating the potential for law to serve as an intervention.
To mitigate morbidity and mortality associated with prescription opioids, most states have implemented limits on opioid analgesic prescribing. Approaches vary, but these laws generally restrict the duration of an opioid prescriptions by the number of days supplied. Some states additionally limit the daily dosage or total dosage allowed in opioid prescriptions.
This dataset presents state-level statutes and regulations across all 50 states and the District of Columbia in effect between January 1, 2014 and December 31, 2019.
This report explores the relationship between major health law recommendations from the federal government and the actual output of state legislative policy-makers. Providing evidence-informed policy recommendations to state, local and tribal policy-makers is part of the job description of federal health agencies. The Department of Health and Human Services publishes a compendium of recommendations, Healthy People 2020, the latest in a decennial series that began in 1980.
Director of Research and Operations, Elizabeth Platt, presented these slides at the NACCHO 360 Conference on July 20, 2022, with two other presenters including Katrina Forrest and Akeem Anderson from CityHealth.
CityHealth.org, an initiative of the de Beaumont Foundation and Kaiser Permanente, works to improve community health by advancing a package of evidence-based policies across the largest U.S. cities.
Published in the American Journal of Public Health, this editorial, written by CPHLR Research Fellow and Temple Beasley School of Law faculty member Patty Skuster, JD, MPP, and Heidi Moseson, PhD, MPH, explores the legal risk remaining for at-home medication abortion.
This research collected Financial Assistance Policies and related debt collection policies from a representative sample of 75 340B hospitals to better understand financial support for pharmaceuticals for low-income populations.
This paper, published in Sexual and Reproductive Health Matters, analyzes provisions that do not account for the prevalence of self-managed abortion and evidence of its safety. Such provisions require that abortion take place in a formal healthcare setting. The researchers also analyzed criminal penalties for non-compliance.
