Information Sharing in the School Setting During a Public Health Emergency.

The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974 is the federal law that protects the privacy of personally identifiable information from student education records and applies to all education entities that receive funding under any program administered by the U.S. Department of Education. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 is the federal law that establishes privacy requirements for patients' protected health information. Together these privacy laws establish rules that guide school nurses in the sharing of student information, even in times of public health emergencies. The U.S. Department of Education and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services have issued special updates to privacy laws in response to the Novel Coronavirus Disease providing certain waivers of typical privacy requirements and direction to allow the sharing of information during this public health emergency. The purpose of this article is to briefly review the privacy laws as they relate to schools, as well as to provide an overview of the recent waivers to assist school nurses, school administrators, healthcare professionals, and public health agencies in protecting the health and safety of students during this current public health emergency.

Legal Innovations to Advance a Culture of Health.

As conceptualized by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and its partners, a culture of health centers on a society in which health flourishes across all populations and sectors. Law, among other tools, is critical to advancing a culture of health across multiple arenas. In this manuscript, Network for Public Health Law colleagues illustrate how legal innovations at all levels of government contribute to societal health. Examples include modern laws that promote healthy and safe low-income housing, telemedicine reimbursement, paid sick and safe time, healthy food and beverages, reduced smoking rates, child vaccinations, universal pre-k, adolescents' healthy sleep, overdose prevention, and medical-legal partnerships.

State experiences implementing youth sports concussion laws: challenges, successes, and lessons for evaluating impact.

While provisions of youth sports concussion laws are very similar, little is known as to how they are being implemented, factors that promote or impede implementation, or the level of compliance in each jurisdiction. We aimed to describe state experiences with implementation in order to inform ongoing efforts to reduce the harm of sports-related traumatic brain injury and to guide future evaluations of the laws' impacts and the development of future public health laws. We conducted key-informant interviews in 35 states with recently enacted concussion legislation. States varied considerably in their readiness and capacity for implementation. Factors facilitating implementation included existing partnerships, procedures, and resources; centralized implementation authority; prior related efforts; and involvement in the policymaking process by those now charged with implementation. Inhibitors included ambiguous statutory language, unclear delegation of authority, and compliance difficulties. Ongoing challenges persist, including primary prevention; determining which providers are qualified to make return-to-play assessments and contents of those assessments; compliance difficulties in rural and under-served areas; and unclear responsibility for enforcement. Despite the similarity of youth sports concussion laws, early evidence suggests there is considerable variation in their implementation. These findings are critical for ongoing empirical investigations to accurately evaluate the laws' provisions and to identify successful legal approaches to protecting young athletes.

Major trends in public health law and practice: a network national report.

Since its inception in September 2010, the Network for Public Health Law has responded to hundreds of public health legal technical assistance claims from around the country. Based on a review of these data, a series of major trends in public health practice and the law are analyzed, including issues concerning: the Affordable Care Act, tobacco control, emergency legal preparedness, health information privacy, food policy, vaccination, drug overdose prevention, sports injury law, public health accreditation, and maternal breastfeeding. These and other emerging themes in public health law demonstrate the essential role of law and practice in advancing the public's health.

The impact of state safe routes to school-related laws on active travel to school policies and practices in U.S. elementary schools.

This study examined the relationship between state laws requiring minimum bussing distances, hazardous route exemptions, sidewalks, crossing guards, speed zones, and traffic control measures around schools and active travel to school (ATS) policies/practices in nationally representative samples of U.S. public elementary schools between 2007-2009. The state laws and school data were compiled through primary legal research and annual mail-back surveys of principals, respectively. Multivariate logistic and zero-inflated poisson regression indicated that all state law categories (except for sidewalks) relate to ATS. These laws should be considered in addition to formal safe routes to school programs as possible influences on ATS.

Legal and ethical issues in cancer genetics nursing.

OBJECTIVES: This article will set forth major interests at stake for patients considering predictive genetic testing, some legal bases for protecting patients, and general ethical principles that can guide cancer genetic nurses in their practice. DATA SOURCES: Review of health, ethical, and legal literature CONCLUSION: There are many potential interests at stake for patients considering genetic testing for susceptibility to cancer and a number of legal protections for patients against genetic discrimination. Nurses and physicians who offer genetic testing should be aware of applicable laws in their states, and remain cognizant of evolving ethical principles that can guide the practice IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING PRACTICE: Ethical and legal questions surrounding genetic testing linger--particularly for nurses and physicians whose primary concern is the best interests of the patient.