Hodge James G, Corbett Alicia
Western Region Office, Network for Public Health Law, Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law, Arizona State University, 1100 S. McAlister Ave, Tempe, AZ 85287-7906. Email:
Public Health Law and Policy Program, Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona.
Prev Chronic Dis. 2016 Jun 30;13:E85. doi: 10.5888/pcd13.160121.
State and local legal innovations to address chronic conditions are an ongoing source of public health improvements. For decades, some of the most ingenious law and policy ideas to address the underlying causes of chronic conditions and their contributing factors have emerged from state or local public sector grassroots initiatives in diverse areas, including tobacco use, safe housing and transportation, and environmental hazards. These reforms, however, are susceptible to invalidation through the legal doctrine of preemption. Embedded throughout our constitutional system, preemption refers to how state or local laws may be averted, displaced, or negated by conflicting laws at a higher level of government. Preemption can be complex in concept and application, leading to considerable confusion among public health leaders seeking to generate meaningful policy proposals. The objective of this article is to unravel the legal concept of preemption, explain its use as a tool to both thwart or further public health interventions, and offer practical guidance for how to legally navigate around it to address factors underlying chronic conditions.
州和地方法律创新以应对慢性病是持续改善公众健康的一个源泉。几十年来，一些旨在解决慢性病根本原因及其促成因素的最具独创性的法律和政策理念，源自州或地方公共部门在包括烟草使用、安全住房和交通以及环境危害等不同领域的基层倡议。然而，这些改革容易因优先适用原则而被宣布无效。优先适用原则贯穿于我们的宪法体系，指的是州或地方法律如何可能被更高层级政府的冲突性法律所规避、取代或否定。优先适用原则在概念和应用上可能很复杂，这导致寻求提出有意义政策建议的公共卫生领导人相当困惑。本文的目的是阐明优先适用原则这一法律概念，解释其作为阻碍或推进公共卫生干预措施的工具的用途，并就如何在法律上绕过该原则以解决慢性病潜在因素提供实用指导。
