What is effective "legal triage" in a public health emergency?

This project explores how legal and public health decision makers use law in critical public health emergencies to protect populations from significant morbidity and mortality. The research approach characterizes legal triage as a decision-making process that can be deconstructed into four functional constructs: decision-making environments; decision-making frameworks; decision-support systems; and decision aids (or tools). The first deliverable for this project is available on the Decision Theatre Web site (www.decisiontheatre.org) as a downloadable document to build legal triage capabilities within public health systems.  Future materials include an exercise to measure program in legal preparedness that can be used by public health entities and legal professionals, results from the first prototype exercise around H1N1, and a performance evaluation instrument to assess decision making capabilities concerning critical legal issues in declared public health emergencies in other jurisdictions.