Att C PHEL Competencies v.1.0

The Public Health Emergency Law (PHEL) Competency
Model Version 1.0
What are PHEL Competencies?
Competency in public health law is the level at which public health practitioners have the abilities and
skills “to access and understand the relevant laws and to actually apply them to given health issues.” 1
Competency in public health emergency law is critical to public health practitioners’ ability to prepare
for and respond to all-hazards public emergencies effectively. Given the significance of public health law
to effective public health emergency preparedness, and recognizing this critical gap in existing
emergency preparedness competencies, CDC’s Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response asked
CDC’s Public Health Law Program (PHLP) to develop a set of competencies in public health emergency
law for mid-tier public health professionals. As a result, PHLP staff attorneys developed the Public Health
Emergency Law Competency Model Version 1.0.

Using the PHEL Competencies
Ideally, the PHEL Competencies will be used to advance the inclusion of law-based content in all public
health emergency training, resources, and tools. This would ensure that more state and local mid-tier
public health professionals could improve competency in this critical area. For example,
• State, tribal, local, and territorial preparedness coordinators and other public health
professionals can use these competencies when they update or revise related job descriptions.
•

Mid-tier public health professionals can use this model as a self-assessment tool.

•

Preparedness coordinators can bring the competencies to the attention of their legal advisors to
start discussions about which specific federal, state, tribal, local, or territorial laws might be
implicated by each competency, and to identify ways to ensure relevant professionals are
provided opportunities to increase their knowledge, skills, and abilities in public health
emergency law.

For more information about the PHEL Competencies project or PHLP’s activities around public health
emergency law, visit PHLP’s website at www.cdc.gov/phlp, or send an email message to
[email protected].

1

Anthony Moulton, Richard N. Gottfried, Richard A. Goodman, Anne M. Murphy, Raymond D. Rawson, What Is Public Health Legal
Preparedness? 31 (Supp. 4) J.L. MED. ETHICS 672, 672–83 (2003). Available at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1748720X.2003.tb00134.x/pdf (last visited Sept. 12, 2012).

The Public Health Emergency Law
Competency Model Version 1.0

Domain 1:
Systems
Preparedness
and Response

•1.1: Act within the scope of federal, state, tribal, and local statutory and
regulatory authority during emergency situations, and through state
and/or federal declarations of emergency.
•1.2: Communicate legal authority and procedures to emergency
response partners, such as other public health agencies, other health
agencies, and other government agencies during planning, drills, and
actual emergencies.
•1.3: Identify limits to legal knowledge, skill, and authority and key
system resources, including legal advisors, for referring matters that
exceed those limits.
•1.4: Integrate legal information into the exercise of professional public
health judgment within the larger public health response.

Domain 2:
Management
and Protection
of Property
and Supplies

Domain 3:
Management
and Protection
of Persons

•2.1: Implement the use of relevant legal information, tools,
procedures, and remedies including injunctions, closing orders, and
abatement orders.
•2.2: Identify how and under what circumstances legal searches,
seizures, and destruction of property and material can take place for
public health purposes.
•2.3: Describe the legal authorities related to the distribution and
dispensation of medical supplies and the effect of a state and/or
federal emergency or public health declaration on those authorities.

•3.1: Implement the use of relevant legal information, tools,
procedures, and remedies related to social distancing including
evacuation, quarantine and isolation orders, closure of public
places, curfews.
•3.2: Recognize the sources of potential civil and criminal liability of
public health personnel and consider due process issues before
taking legal action.