Skip to main content

Main menu

  • Home
  • Content
    • Current issue
    • Past issues
    • Healthy You
    • Job listings
    • Q&As
    • Special sections
  • Multimedia
    • Quiz
    • Podcasts
    • Videos
    • App
  • FAQs
    • Advertising
    • Subscriptions
    • For APHA members
    • Internships
    • Change of address
  • About
    • About The Nation's Health
    • Submissions
    • Permissions
    • Purchase articles
    • Join APHA
  • Contact us
    • Feedback
  • APHA
    • AJPH
    • NPHW

User menu

  • My alerts

Search

  • Advanced search
The Nation's Health
  • APHA
    • AJPH
    • NPHW
  • My alerts
The Nation's Health

Advanced Search

  • Home
  • Content
    • Current issue
    • Past issues
    • Healthy You
    • Job listings
    • Q&As
    • Special sections
  • Multimedia
    • Quiz
    • Podcasts
    • Videos
    • App
  • FAQs
    • Advertising
    • Subscriptions
    • For APHA members
    • Internships
    • Change of address
  • About
    • About The Nation's Health
    • Submissions
    • Permissions
    • Purchase articles
    • Join APHA
  • Contact us
    • Feedback
  • Follow The Nation's Health on Twitter
  • Follow APHA on Twitter
  • Visit APHA on Facebook
  • Follow APHA on Youtube
  • Follow APHA on Instagram
  • Follow The Nation's Health RSS feeds
NewsNation

Public health paramount in first months of Biden administration

Mark Barna
The Nation's Health April 2021, 51 (2) 15;
Mark Barna
  • Search for this author on this site
Figure1

Last year’s West Coast wildfires, several of which reddened the San Francisco sky, were linked to climate change. The Biden administration has prioritized action on the climate crisis.

Photo by Benneymarty, courtesy iStockimages

The Biden administration has placed public health high on its agenda, tackling pressing issues from day one.

Soon after taking office in January, President Joe Biden signed dozens of executive orders, memorandums and proclamations, many of them reversing policies adopted by the previous administration that threaten public health. Additional public health-friendly measures came in the following weeks and months, including many of high priority to APHA.

On Jan. 27, Biden signed an executive order that reestablishes the nation’s commitment to fight the growing global climate crisis. Among its measures, the order establishes the White House Office of Domestic Climate Policy, charged with coordinating and implementing the president’s domestic climate agenda, and brings U.S. agency leaders together in the National Climate Task Force. An earlier executive order from the president recommitted the U.S. to the Paris Agreement, the international accord through which nations agree to lower carbon emissions to reduce global warming.

Other public health-related measures approved by Biden include:

  • • Directives for the U.S. to reengage with the World Health Organization, including work to deliver COVID-19 vaccines globally.

  • • An order requiring physical distancing and masks on federal property.

  • • An executive order emphasizing that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act bans discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity.

  • • An executive order on advancing equity for all, with emphasis on people of color who have been underrepresented and marginalized, that includes rooting out systemic racism.

  • • An executive order to shore up the Deferred Action for Child Arrivals program, which protects immigrants who came to the U.S. as children from deportation. Biden also called for legislation offering a path to U.S. citizenship for DACA immigrants.

  • • An executive order creating a task force that will work to reunite families separated at the U.S.-Mexico border.

  • • A memorandum in support of science and evidence-based policymaking, which states that “scientific findings should never be distorted or influenced by political considerations.”

For more on Biden’s actions, visit www.whitehouse.gov.

  • Copyright The Nation’s Health, American Public Health Association
PreviousNext
Back to top

In this issue

The Nation's Health: 51 (2)
The Nation's Health
Vol. 51, Issue 2
April 2021
  • Table of Contents
  • Table of Contents (PDF)
  • Index by author
  • Complete Issue (PDF)

Healthy You

Quiz

Print
Article Alerts
Sign In to Email Alerts with your Email Address
Email Article
We do not capture any email addresses.
Enter multiple addresses on separate lines or separate them with commas.
Public health paramount in first months of Biden administration
(Your Name) has sent you a message from The Nation's Health
(Your Name) thought you would like to see this item on The Nation's Health website.
CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
Citation Tools
Public health paramount in first months of Biden administration
Mark Barna
The Nation's Health April 2021, 51 (2) 15;

Citation Manager Formats

  • BibTeX
  • Bookends
  • EasyBib
  • EndNote (tagged)
  • EndNote 8 (xml)
  • Medlars
  • Mendeley
  • Papers
  • RefWorks Tagged
  • Ref Manager
  • RIS
  • Zotero
Share
Public health paramount in first months of Biden administration
Mark Barna
The Nation's Health April 2021, 51 (2) 15;
del.icio.us logo Digg logo Reddit logo Twitter logo CiteULike logo Facebook logo Google logo Mendeley logo
Tweet Widget Facebook Like LinkedIn logo

Jump to section

  • Top

More in this TOC Section

  • Ethics at center of COVID-19 vaccine distribution debate: Prioritizing vulnerable populations
  • Public health workforce in dire need of long-term investment: Biden proposes Public Health Job Corps
  • Higher minimum wage could boost US health, pull workers from poverty
Show more Nation

Subjects

  • Preparedness
  • Law, Public Health
  • Administration, Health

Popular features

  • Healthy You
  • Special sections
  • Q&As
  • Quiz
  • Podcasts

FAQs

  • Advertising
  • Subscriptions
  • For APHA members
  • Submissions
  • Change of address

APHA

  • Join APHA
  • Annual Meeting
  • NPHW
  • AJPH
  • Get Ready
  • Contact APHA
  • Privacy policy

© 2021 The Nation's Health

Powered by HighWire