ASU’s Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law and its Public Health Law and Policy Program has received a $1.3 million grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) to establish the Western regional office for the newly launched national Public Health Law Network, which provides legal and policy solutions to professionals grappling with complex public health challenges, such as food safety, health reform and emergency preparedness.
Dr. James G. Hodge Jr, Decision Theater affiliated faculty member, is the co-director of the Western region Public Health Law Network office. The center at ASU will build on the work in emergency legal preparedness in which Hodge and the College of Law’s PHLPP have been leaders. For example, during the 2009 H1N1 (swine flu) epidemic, Hodge’s program accumulated specific data (http://bit.ly/bqnprG - powerpoint document) about the outbreak and reported it in real time to public health law and policy-makers. The project reported specifically on the legal environment concerning declarations of emergencies at the federal and state levels, as well as specific legal issues related to response efforts.