Law and Epidemiological Practice: Reinvigorating CSTE's Public Health Law Subcommittee - New Members Welcome

Brief Summary:
Law plays an important part in the daily work of epidemiologists working in state and local health departments. All government epidemiologists work within the authority of laws within their jurisdictions, and the kinds of public health actions that epidemiologists may take are constrained by law. Law has played a crucial role in many issues facing state and local epidemiologists, such as informed consent for treatment of minors, vaccination of health workers, distinctions between law enforcement and epidemiological investigations, syndromic surveillance, and many others. CSTE first established a public health law subcommittee in the 1990s in response to regulatory issues related to human subjects research. Later, the subcommittee was instrumental in clarifying the public health exemption embodied in regulations associated with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA). Subsequently, the subcommittee was involved in privacy issues surrounding the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), isolation and quarantine, public health surveillance, and other topics. In 2012, CSTE members, including lawyers and nonlawyers, began efforts to reinvigorate the subcommittee, to make it more proactive, and to aim it toward the evolving legal issues that are increasingly part of epidemiological practice. At this Roundtable, members of the subcommittee will describe those efforts and will host a discussion on possible roles for the subcommittee in 2013 and beyond.