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Mutual Aid Agreements: Essential Legal Tools for Public Health Preparedness and Response
Title: Mutual Aid Agreements: Essential Legal Tools for Public Health Preparedness and Response
Author: Daniel Stier, and Richard Goodman
Date: 2007
Institution: American Journal of Public Health
Bibliographic Entry: Stier, Daniel D. and Richard A. Goodman. “Mutual Aid Agreements: Essential Legal Tools for Public Health Preparedness and Response.” Am J Public Health (2007); 97: S62-68S. http://www.ajph.org/cgi/reprint/97/Supplement_1/S62?ck=nck (accessed June 13, 2007).
Electronic Link: http://www.ajph.org/cgi/reprint/97/Supplement_1/S62?ck=nck
Key Words: mutual aid, public health emergencies, public health law
Summary of Key Issues, Points, Conclusions:
This article defines mutual aid as the sharing of supplies, equipment, personnel, information, and other resources across political boundaries, and is effectively accomplished by entering into agreements. After Hurricane Andrew in 1992, Congress approved the Emergency Management Assistance Compact (EMAC), a mutual aid agreement among the states, and a major legal tool for sharing resources across state boundaries. Public health emergencies, such as Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, have heightened the recognition of potential and actual obstacles to effective mutual aid and have exposed legal “gaps,” both within and outside EMAC, that must be filled.
The Public Health Law Program of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention describes the basic legal framework for states to accomplish interstate and international mutual aid, identifies gaps in that framework, and suggests steps that could be taken to address those gaps. Of focus are: 1.) types of mutual aid, 2) current federal approaches to promote increased use of mutual aid agreements by states, 3) mutual aid projects undertaken by states, including efforts to assess legal authority, and 4) federal constitutional and other legal issues relating to mutual assistance.
Mutual aid is composed of at least 5 categories over a gradient of potential liability, including the sharing of planning information, epidemiological and laboratory data or information, equipment and supplies, unlicensed personnel, and licensed personnel. International and interstate mutual aid is discussed. In reference to interstate mutual aid, EMAC stipulates the rules to be followed when sharing personnel and other resources across state boundaries during an emergency declared by the governor of a state requesting assistance. Three major issues are addressed by EMAC: liability, reimbursement, and response.
As part of the final thoughts, with regards to agreements with Canadian provinces and Mexican states, cultivating working relationships with attorneys in both Canada and Mexico is advisable, in order to develop expertise of their laws, and to ensure mutual aid agreements are negotiated on a solid legal foundation and the shared objectives are met between U.S. and Mexican states and Canadian provinces.
Name of Researcher: Tricia L. Salzar
Institution: Integrative Center for Homeland Security, Texas A&M University
Date Posted: Nov. 20, 2007