Jessica L. Roberts is the Director of the Health Law & Policy Institute and the Leonard H. Childs Chair in Law.
March 24, 2021 - Faculty members from the University of Houston Law Center's Health Law & Policy Institute recently shared their expertise in the "COVID-19 Policy Playbook II: Legal Recommendations for a Safer, More Equitable Future."
Jessica L. Roberts, Director of the Health Law & Policy Institute (HLPI) and the Leonard H. Childs Chair in Law, and Leah R. Fowler, the HLPI's Research Director and a Research Assistant Professor, co-authored a chapter titled, "Improving Data Collection and Management" with Nicolas P. Terry of the Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law.
The book chapter argues that data are fundamental to good public health policies and their implementation. But with the challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic, the collection, analysis and distribution of public health data were flawed.
The chapter's summary reads in part:
Leah R. Fowler is a Research Assistant Professor at the University of Houston Law Center's Health Law & Policy Institute.
"Public health data suffered from politicization, a lack of centralized leadership, and substandard governance. These flaws must be quickly corrected. That rebuilding process should also seek to improve disease surveillance by leveraging syndromic surveillance, genomic surveillance, and digital epidemiology."
The Temple University Center for Public Health Law Research, Center for Health Policy and Law, Northeastern University School of Law, Public Health Law Watch, Wayne State University, Indiana University, The Network for Public Health Law and ChangeLab Solutions produced the report.
Click here to read "Improving Data Collection and Management."
