Developing a model public health law for the Pacific

Public health laws provide a legal and administrative structure under which public health programs are run, health promotion is supported, communicable and chronic disease managed, data collected, health emergences addressed and the rights and responsibilities of individuals and communities made clear.  In the area of health, approaches to legislation in both developed and developing countries have shifted enormously in the last century.  Developing countries that lack the capacity and resources to undertake regular update and review of legislation may find that their public health laws are extremely outdated, do not take account of emerging communicable diseases and social trends, and do not support a modern approach to public health governance.
In 2008, the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID) funded a project to develop a Model Public Health Law for the Pacific Island region.  The project will examine existing Pacific public health laws and consult with nation states to ascertain how the current laws are presently working.  The final result will be the creation of a model law in a modular format, capable of being adopted in whole or in part by individual nation states.  In addition to the domestic governance of public health, the model law will also provide opportunities for regional approaches to public health management where consultation and research indicate that a regional approach would be useful. The project covers the 14 members of the Pacific Island Forum: the Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Republic of Marshall Islands, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu.  The proposed oral presentation will outline the rationale, methodology and expected outcomes of the project, since the model that this project embodies may be useful to other, region-wide approaches to public health law reform outside the Pacific basin.