Local action, national impact: Local boards of health as advocates for comprehensive reproductive health coverage

In 2012, the National Institute for Reproductive Health, the Philadelphia Board of Health and Women's Medical Fund partnered to advocate for comprehensive insurance coverage of abortion. The Philadelphia Board of Health passed a resolution in February 2013 in support of insurance coverage of abortion and access to reproductive health care and calling on President Obama, the US Congress, and Pennsylvania legislators to take action to reinstate federal coverage without restrictions. The passage of this resolution takes place in coordination with work by other local policymakers and advocates countrywide who are voicing their support on this issue in similar ways. This partnership and advocacy represents an exciting avenue for local health administrators to make a statement on national and state policy issues relevant to public health while also underscoring the local impact of these decisions. As widely-respected local leaders, publish health officials can use their positions to bolster work by advocates across the country on many public health issues and can bring a sense of bipartisanship and seriousness to issues that advocates and legislators sometimes cannot. This advocacy is particularly valuable on reproductive health issues due to widespread misinformation on essential services such as comprehensive sex education and emergency contraception. This session will use this action as a case study and will discuss the crafting and passage of the resolution and the impact and response to passage. We will then discuss ways that other health administrators can replicate this work in their own communities on various public health issues.