Act for Public Health: Strengthening of Public Health

We're currently migrating this dataset. To explore these data, visit our Legacy Site.

You can also visit Laws Addressing Public Health Authority to Respond to Emergencies to see states that have enacted laws addressing authority to respond to public health emergencies between May 21, 2022, and December 21, 2023. 

Throughout COVID-19, several state legislators recognized the need to support public health during a global pandemic and introduced different types of bills enhancing the organizational independence of health agencies, creating COVID-19 task forces centering equity, and empowering state and local health officials with more tools to act quickly during an emergency.

This longitudinal dataset captures details of legislation strengthening public health introduced between January 1, 2021, and May 20, 2022, in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. Each individual bill is coded as a separate instance and labeled by its bill number. When querying the map below, states with multiple bills will appear as purple; click the state to learn more information about the different bills within that state.

This dataset is one of six that were created in collaboration with the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials and the Network for Public Health Law as part of the Act for Public Health initiative.