APHA Adopts 27 New Policies

Washington, DC, January 12, 2004 - The American Public Health Association recently adopted 27 policies addressing a broad range of issues in public health from emergency contraception and the public health nursing shortage to threats to public health science and the marketing of food to children.

Following are descriptions of the measures approved by the Association's Governing Council during its 131st Annual Meeting in San Francisco, Nov. 15-19, 2003. The descriptions are brief summaries; full language of the 2003 policies is available here.

• Support for emergency contraception - supports efforts to allow emergency contraception to be available without a prescription; urges legislative bodies to support the dissemination of medically accurate information about the use, safety and efficacy of emergency contraception; urges professional organizations to update their standards of care for emergency contraception and to support education curricula on the issue; supports measures that will allow timely access to emergency contraception.
  
• Emergency contraception access for sexual assault survivors - calls for legislation, policies and standards that would require hospitals and clinics to provide accurate, unbiased information on emergency contraception to women who are sexually assaulted and dispense the medication if requested.
  
• Food marketing, children and overweight - encourages measures that would ban food advertising from schools, supports school policies that promote a healthy eating environment, calls for legislation that would ban food advertising to children during children's television programs, encourages the development of guidelines aimed at responsible food advertising and marketing.
  
• Protecting public health functions during economic downturns - urges that states protect essential public health programs, that federal support for such programs be increased, that terrorism preparedness funding not displace support for public health infrastructure and programs, that Congress protect programs such as Medicaid and the state Children's Health Insurance Program, that states not rely on tobacco settlement funds for costs unrelated to public health, that the General Accounting Office investigate the impact of state budget cuts on public health programs and preparedness.
  
• Public health nursing shortage and infrastructure - urges that states give attention to the pending nursing shortage and make plans for solutions, calls on Congress to pass legislation that would protect funding for public health nursing services and limit Medicaid cuts, supports studies of models for recruiting and retaining public health nurses.
  
• Scientific credibility of health advisory committees - urges government officials to evaluate the make-up of advisory panels and address deficiencies, urges officials to follow Federal Advisory Committee Act guidelines pertaining to membership on committees, calls for scientific criteria to guide the selection of committee members and for government guidelines based on such criteria, urges non-governmental organizations to serve as "watchdogs" of scientific committees.
  
• Independent evaluation of pharmaceuticals - calls on Congress to adopt legislation that expands drug evaluation activities, establishes funding for research standards, supports development of surveillance of marketed pharmaceuticals, provides access to information on efficacy and safety of marketed drugs.
  
• Prevention efforts for HIV-positive people in clinical care - calls for the dissemination of prevention guidelines to clinicians who care for people with HIV, calls for increased funding for development of HIV prevention demonstration projects, calls for comprehensive approaches to prevention efforts.
  
• Including supportive housing residents in surveys - calls for resources that will allow federal agencies to include populations living in supportive housing in national surveys and to pilot a program that would allow community-level information on supportive housing via state licensing and certification processes.
  
• Moratorium on animal feed operations - calls for a moratorium on new concentrated animal feed operations until more scientific data on risks has been collected, calls for research on the environmental effects of such operations, especially in regard to exposure of infants and children.
  
• Supporting an environmental tracking network - urges support for enhanced funding for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry for a nationwide health tracking network and urges advocacy for resources that will allow more effective monitoring, investigation and response to environmental-related chronic disease.
  
• Workers' compensation insurance and funding for occupational disease, injury prevention - calls for a national plan for workers' compensation, calls on states to contribute to a workers' disability prevention fund, to ensure that adequate funding is available for occupational safety and health plans, to prepare annual reports on occupational disease and injury rates and develop occupational health research agendas.
  
• Smoking cessation and substance abuse, mental health treatment - urges integrated smoking cessation plans for people receiving mental and substance abuse treatment, calls for substance abuse and mental health treatment facilities to be smoke-free, urges the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration to support such measures.
  
• Opposition to eliminating racial and ethnic data collection - urges opposition to initiatives that would compromise the collection of racial and ethnic data by state and local public institutions for public health purposes.
  
• Increasing access to vision rehabilitation - advocates insurance coverage with reimbursement for vision rehabilitation exams, social services and prescribed assistive devices, including vision enhancement devices; urges health providers to make referrals for vision rehabilitation services; supports education campaigns to increase awareness of vision rehabilitation; supports collaboration with relevant professional organizations.
  
• Access to reproductive health care under Medicaid - urges Congress and states to ensure that providers not be penalized for or prevented from giving patients accurate information about reproductive practices, urges officials to oppose religious exemptions that allow health care delivery systems to refuse certain services, urges states to ensure that women are not enrolled by default into plans that limit services.
  
• Support for sexual and reproductive health and rights - urges leaders to promote sexual and reproductive rights for all by upholding commitments under international agreements, rescinding policies that prevent the use of funds for legal abortion-related activity and restoring a U.S. contribution to the United Nations Population Fund; urges leaders to remove barriers to science-based sexual and reproductive health information.
  
• Safe motherhood - supports independent, community-based pregnancy mortality review boards in every state, supports increased access to quality care for women, supports serum pregnancy tests for childbearing age women who are autopsied.
  
• Nutrition programs for women and children - calls for additional federal funding for nutrition interventions to encourage breastfeeding, healthy eating and physical activity; calls for full funding of the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children; urges increased fruit and vegetable intake via the school lunch program; advocates increased access to child nutrition programs by eliminating the reduced price category.
  
• Federal assault weapons ban - supports the enactment of a federal law to strengthen and renew the 1994 federal assault weapons ban.
  
• Risks of sudden infant death syndrome in child care settings - urges support of the Back to Sleep campaign and its efforts to reduce risks of sudden infant death syndrome in child care settings, encourages state and child care licensing agencies to adopt risk reduction standards for sudden infant death syndrome.
  
• Investments to address HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria - calls for the U.S. contribution to the Global Fund for HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria be increased; calls for U.S. investment in programs for children orphaned by AIDS; calls for U.S. support of debt cancellation to impoverished countries; calls for funding to address the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the United States.
  
• Fiscal viability, independence of public health while responding to terrorism - opposes plans to integrate public health entities with police, intelligence or security agencies; calls for increased funding for public health infrastructure and personnel; calls for legislation that will protect public health workers who refuse to carry out military, police or intelligence tasks that are not a part of public health.
  
• Nuclear weapons development and pre-emptive war - calls on the U.S. government to reaffirm its commitment to treaties aimed at curbing nuclear weapons, urges the United States not to modernize its nuclear weapons arsenal and abandon plans to initiate new nuclear testing, calls on the United States to favor internationally sanctioned approaches to resolving conflicts versus pre-emptive war.
  

The following three policies were passed as latebreakers and will serve as interim policies until confirmed by the Governing Council at its 2004 meeting.

• Threats to public health science - opposes federal guidelines that would require peer review for all regulatory information yet exclude many qualified reviewers, encourages other groups to work with APHA to promote the best science and calls for opposition to legal maneuvers that discredit and disqualify sound scientific evidence during court cases.
  
• Attacks on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and HIV-related research - calls for investigations into attempts to undermine the National Institutes of Health's peer-review process; urges that actions that jeopardize lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender research be stopped; urges that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recommit to ending health disparities based on sexual orientation and gender identity and expression.
  
• Supporting overtime pay protections - urges that proposed regulations that would exclude more workers from overtime pay be withdrawn; urges Congress to protect the Fair Labor Standards Act; urges other organizations to speak out in favor of overtime pay protections for workers.