Gender Inequity in the Public Health Workforce.

Context: Public health is a gendered field. Although a majority of the public health workforce, women encounter an imbalance of power and experience disparate opportunities within the profession.

Analysis: This article offers a multidimensional critique of gender inequity within the public health workforce through an examination of the literature.

Exploring the Development of Three Law-Based Competency Models for Practitioners.

As public health promotion and protection become increasingly complex and integrated into various fields, public health law is emerging as an important tool for public health professionals. To ensure that public health professionals are effectively trained in public health law principles and theories, educators, trainers, and others who develop educational curricula should integrate public health law-related competencies into their training and workforce development efforts. This article provides three competency models developed by the Public Health Law Program at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: (a) the public health emergency law competency model, (b) the public health law competency model, and (c) the legal epidemiology competency model.

Building the Legal Capacity of the Public Health Workforce: Introducing the Public Health Law Academy.

Knowledge of the law and its impact on health outcomes is increasingly important in public health practice. The CDC's Public Health Law Academy helps satisfy this need by providing online trainings, facilitator toolkits, and legal epidemiology tools to aid practitioners in learning about the law's role in promoting public health.

Addressing gaps in health care sector legal preparedness for public health emergencies.

Health care providers and their legal counsel play pivotal roles in preparing for and responding to public health emergencies. Lawyers representing hospitals, health systems, and other health care provider components are being called upon to answer complex legal questions regarding public health preparedness issues that most providers have not previously faced. Many of these issues are legal issues with which public health officials should be familiar, and that can serve as a starting point for cross-sector legal preparedness planning involving both the public health and health care communities.

The dimensions of public health law research.

Applied public health law research is an essential element for improving the legal foundation of public health practice. This article focuses on the proper scope and the methodology related to conducting public health law research. In addition to considering the issue of translating research into practice, the article provides overviews of three current public health law research projects and the lessons they provide for researchers.

New approaches to safe drinking water.

Up to half the population of some states in the United States drink water from small systems not regulated by the Safe Drinking Water Act. The quality of the drinking water from these systems is generally unknown and may be suspect. In many jurisdictions, private wells are the primary source of water.