Act for Public Health: Regulating Public Health Measures

We're currently migrating this dataset. To explore these data, visit our Legacy Site.

You can also visit Laws Addressing Public Health Authority to Respond to Emergencies to see states that have enacted laws addressing authority to respond to public health emergencies between May 21, 2022, and December 21, 2023. 

Between January 1, 2021, and May 20, 2022, every state and the District of Columbia introduced a bill addressing state or local authority to impose a specific public health measure, including vaccination requirements, mask mandates, closures of schools, businesses, or places of worship, and isolation or quarantine measures. Though most bills restricted the ability of the state or local authority to regulate these measures, some states also introduced bills that supported and protected these measures.

This longitudinal dataset captures details of legislation regulating public health measures introduced between January 1, 2021, and May 20, 2022, in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. Each individual bill is coded as a separate instance and labeled by its bill number. When querying the map below, states with multiple bills will appear as purple; click the state to learn more information about the different bills within that state.

This dataset is one of six that were created in collaboration with the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials and the Network for Public Health Law as part of the Act for Public Health initiative.