Act for Public Health: Public Health Authority Limits

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. 

Since January 1, 2021, legislators in all 50 states have introduced bills limiting the authority of governors, state health officials, and/or local health officials regarding public health emergency orders in various ways. The legislative efforts to limit public health authority include bills that restrict the scope of an emergency order, bills that limit the duration of an emergency order or state of emergency, and bills that allow legislatures to terminate an emergency order.

This longitudinal dataset captures details of legislation limiting the emergency public health authority of state governors, state health officials, and local health officials 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.