Federal Public Health Law

This chapter explains the origins and current operations of public health emergency law, at both the federal and state levels. When the colonies first formed the United States, there was no national public health law. In a time when traveling any significant distance was rare, infectious disease outbreaks and epidemics were often localized, to an extent that is difficult to imagine today. The origin of independent federal public health authority derives from laws designed to provide medical care for eighteenth-century merchant seamen, a group who traveled constantly and often had little access to care when they became ill in unfamiliar cities. Moreover, their illnesses threatened the mercantile trade that was essential to the economy of the fledging nation. The origins of what is now the U.S. Public Health Service (PHS) began in 1798, when Congress established a fund to provide treatment for sick and injured merchant seamen. The PHS is now a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS). The core of federal public health law is found in the statutes that grant authority for various actions to DHHS, PHS, and CDC.