Building Public Health Law Capacity at the Local Level-Reference-Cited by-同舟云学术

Building Public Health Law Capacity at the Local Level

Published:2008 Issue:S3 Volume:36 Page:6-28
ISSN:1073-1105
Container-title:Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics
language:en
Short-container-title:J. Law. Med. Ethics

Author:

Hoffmann Diane E.,Rowthorn Virginia

Abstract

In the early days of HIV awareness, prior to universal precautions, as a local health officer, I was supervising an openly gay employee. The county executive (in his formal capacity) asked me the HIV status of the employee and threatened my employment if I did not reveal it. I was reluctant to do so, believing it would be an invasion of the employee’s privacy. I contacted the county attorney who advised me that I could reveal the employee’s HIV status to the county executive but he was not willing to put his guidance in writing. Ultimately, I spoke with the employee’s attorney and was given permission to reveal the employee’s HIV status. The experience, however, left a bad taste in my mouth. I felt the county attorney was acting politically in support of the county executive rather than doing what was legally appropriate. He certainly did not act as an advocate for the local health department!

Publisher

Cambridge University Press (CUP)

Subject

Health Policy,General Medicine,Issues, ethics and legal aspects

Link

http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1748-720X.2008.00312.x

Reference60 articles.

1. 52. Health Law Advocates, available at (last visited June 23, 2008). We describe HLA as “health law,” rather than “public health law,” focused because the panel generally accepts cases relating to health care access, delivery, and financing rather public health issues.

2. 32. These organizations are affiliated with, but not financially supported by, NACCHO.

3. 28. National Association of City and County Health Officials, “About NACCHO: Mission,” available at (last visited June 23, 2008).

4. 5. The models are described in the 2005 National Profile of Local Health Departments (id.) and the Turning Point project's 2002 State Public Health Law Assessment Report ( Gostin, L. O. and Hodge, J. G. Jr. , Turning Point Public Health Statute Modernization National Excellence Collaborative, State Public Health Law Assessment Report, 2002, available at [last visited July 1, 2008]). In its 2005 National Profile of Local Health Departments, NACCHO surveyed 2,864 local health departments across the country. Of the 2,300 local health departments that returned the Web-based questionnaire, 79% self-identified as units of local government (decentralized) and 21% as units of the state health department (centralized). See Leep (id.), at 4. The NACCHO study named four categories (centralized, decentralized, mixed, and shared) but used only three categories in the study for purposes of simplification: All local health departments are units of the state health agency, all local health departments are units of local government, and mixed.

5. 39. Id., at “Benefits,” available at (last visited July 1, 2008).