Public Health Law & Policy — History & Resources

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walawlibrary

4 min readDec 18, 2020

Public health issues are at the forefront of our awareness this year, perhaps more than at any other time in the last century. In the face of the COVID-19 pandemic our state and the nation have seen a reprisal of measures that were taken to combat the 1918 flu pandemic. Public health tools such as mandates relating to face coverings, stay-at-home orders, and limitations on public gatherings mirror tactics that were used by Washington state and local officials to control the spread of the flu in 1918 and 1919. Many comparisons have been made between the two pandemics, but more importantly there is much to learn from them and other public health crises that have arisen in the intervening years. Public health law and policy play a critical role in not only combatting future pandemics but in improving the health of populations in general.

Organized public health efforts pre-date the early 1900s by millennia. Early examples of public health strategies targeted sanitation, dating back to ancient Rome, with the construction of wastewater drainage systems. Elements of our current public health laws are based in the response to smallpox. Inoculations for smallpox date back to 1000 B.C., but early evidence of effectiveness came in the early 1700s in Boston. Modern smallpox vaccination programs were so successful that the disease was officially declared eradicated in 1980.

New York State prenatal care poster / Work Projects Administration Poster Collection (Library of Congress)

The earliest local health department in the United States was established in 1790 in Virginia. In our state the Washington State Board of Health was established in the Constitution in 1889 and Yakima established the nation’s first city/county health department in 1911. The Washington State Department of Health originated in 1921, although it was a division of the Department of Social and Health Services from 1970 to 1989. The public health system in Washington is decentralized, and includes more than 30 county health departments and several joint health districts acting as local government agencies. American Indian tribes also work together with the state on public health issues.

Public health encompasses a broad range of areas that can affect the health of the population. Historically, public health law has shaped government response and guided community action related to everything from infectious diseases, environmental health, healthcare systems, and more. The goal of public health legislation has been to maintain a constitutional balance between protecting individual liberties and promoting the public good. Public health laws and initiatives have provided a safer food supply and greater transportation safety. They have also been used to respond to modern threats such as racism, HIV, flu pandemics, and the 2001 anthrax attacks.

*Infographic* *from the CDC’s* *Let’s Stop HIV Together*/Ending the HIV Epidemic campaign

Public health law will continue to be in the spotlight as local, state, and federal governments grapple with the COVID-19 crisis. States have enacted a whole host of legislation since the beginning of the pandemic. Some states have enacted contact tracing legislation in the wake of privacy concerns associated with this important public health tool. When the immediate danger of the pandemic is behind us many governments will be looking to implement long term policy changes to address the health inequities that the pandemic has exacerbated. Read further for information on public health laws, government agencies, and other resources: