Health Care System Transformation and Integration: A Call to Action for Public Health.

Restructured health care reimbursement systems and new requirements for nonprofit hospitals are transforming the U.S. health system, creating opportunities for enhanced integration of public health and health care goals.

Legal frameworks supporting public health department accreditation: lessons learned from 10 states.

Context: The existence of different types of accreditation legal frameworks, embedded in complex and varying state legal infrastructures and political environments, raises important legal implications for the national voluntary accreditation program.

Objective: To increase an understanding of accreditation-enabling laws nationwide.

Design: In 2010 to 2011, the North Carolina Institute for Public Health conducted a study of state legal frameworks supporting public health department accreditation or related programs (ie, certification/assessment, performance management, and quality improvement).

Legal preparedness for bioterrorism.

Responding to a terrorist biological weapon attack poses new challenges not only for the public health response community but also to the very construct of public health police powers as we know them today. States are debating the merits of revising and updating these powers in order to ensure an effective and legally appropriate response. This article covers three aspects of the policy debate: the experience in one state from a legislative perspective, a discussion from an academic viewpoint, and one example of the role of enhanced powers from the response perspective.