LOUISVILLE, Ky. — The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has awarded a $989,000 three-year grant to the Institute for Bioethics, Health Policy and Law at the University of Louisville, designating the institute as one of two collaborating Centers for Public Health Law. The other is the Georgetown University/Johns Hopkins Center for Public Health Law

The new Center for Partnership in Public Health Law will coordinate professional education for a range of related professionals including public health officials, law enforcement personnel, prosecutors, public health lawyers and judges.

“Most of the public health laws in the United States were developed in the early part of the twentieth century,” explained Larry Palmer, co-investigator of the center who holds the institute’s endowed chair in urban health policy. “In recent years, a global economy and transportation system combined with emerging infectious diseases and bioterrorism threats have created new challenges for public health laws and public health professionals.”

“Most of the legal work involving public health is performed by professionals who do not specialize in public health law,” said Mark Rothstein, institute director and principal investigator at the center. “As the core public health competencies expand to include health informatics and genomics, among other factors, there is a risk that legal actors will be ill-equipped to evaluate the severity, urgency and quality of the evidence of emerging risks to the public health.”

The center will address the needs of judges and lawyers who are unfamiliar with the provisions of public health laws in their particular jurisdictions. With the rise of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, bioterrorism and similar threats, center faculty members say it is imperative that judges and others responsible for enforcing state and local public health laws be prepared.

According to Rothstein, few courts have considered issues of isolation, quarantine or medical surveillance in recent years, nor have they been required to balance the protection of public health with due process and privacy issues.

Along with Rothstein and Palmer, institute professor T. Howard Stone and Linda L. Chezem of Purdue University will collaborate on the center’s work while the U of L School of Public Health and Information Sciences will provide public health science expertise.

The center began operation this month and is working with its partners and the CDC to develop a strategic plan for increasing the public health law training capacity of such groups as the American Bar Association, National Association of State Judicial Educators and the National Association of Local Boards of Health.