Kathleen Hoke, J.D., serves as Director, Eastern Region, a position she has held since the Network launched in 2010. She is also a law school professor and director of the Legal Resource Center for Public Health Policy at the University of Maryland Carey School of Law.
As director of the Network’s Eastern Region Office, Kathleen oversees work on a myriad of issues, including injury prevention; housing law and policy; regulation of cannabis, alcohol, and tobacco; food security; maternal and child health; and oral health. She brings her expertise on the sources and scope of state and local public health powers to work in examining recent changes in laws impacting public health authority that have been proposed and passed in response to public health agency action during the pandemic. She has also guided the Eastern Region’s work in supporting public health officials in understanding and seeking better laws to deter and penalize those who threaten public health officials. The work of the Eastern Region Office, and the Network as a whole, centers on health equity with a deep focus on law and policy that diminishes the detrimental impact of structural racism.
Kathleen was given the UMB President’s Award for Excellence in 2020 and in 2016 received the Jennifer Robbins Award for the Practice of Public Health Law by the American Public Health Association Law Section. Since 2020, Kathleen has served on the editorial board of the Centers for Disease and Control publication, Preventing Chronic Disease. She serves a variety of professional organizations and was appointed by Maryland’s Governor to the Maryland State Council on Cancer Control from 2018 to 2022.
After receiving her B.S. from Towson University, Kathleen graduated as a member of the Order of the Coif from the University of Maryland School of Law. She completed a clerkship with the Honorable Lawrence Rodowsky of the Maryland Court of Appeals and served with distinction as an Assistant Attorney General and Special Assistant to the Attorney General of Maryland prior to joining the University of Maryland Carey School of Law.
by Overview The Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (PRAMS) is a joint surveillance project between health departments and the Centers for Disease Control…
HDUs can provide health departments critical information to respond proactively to emergencies, public health risks, and equity focused use cases. They also address many contemporary concerns around data sharing, such as transparency around governance and ensuring the access and use of data serves the public good.
by Overview February 19, 2026 | 11:00 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. CTPost-Dobbs, the United States has seen an onslaught of attacks on abortion…
This webinar will offer attendees an overview of changes in law and policy that impact access to reproductive health care directly or through indirect measures that deter pregnant people from seeking care. This webinar is an extension of a workshop held at the recent 2025 Public Health Law Conference and the bulk of the time will be devoted to attendees’ questions on the topics presented.
Local governments and community-based organizations seeking to improve public health through increasing access to nutritious food should consider the role of transportation policy. Demand Responsive Transit (DRT) is an alternative to public transportation that allows users to utilize smaller vans or buses without any fixed schedule or route. This resource includes case studies on DRT that could be applied in healthy food priority areas to increase access to healthy foods.
Law and policy play a critical role in shaping health outcomes especially when it comes to racial health equity. While legislative actions and trends matter, it is also important to understand the role of the courts in altering legal landscapes in ways that can positively or negatively impact racial health disparities. This fact sheet highlights four 2023 U.S. Supreme Court cases with examples of how each potentially impacts racial health equity. It also provides a further examination of two cases of the cases that can be classified as wins for racial health equity.
Pregnancy, giving birth, and being postpartum while incarcerated are linked to negative health impacts as people who are incarcerated are not provided adequate prenatal and postpartum care, and experience trauma from the experience. One policy that supports the health of pregnant people who are incarcerated is mandating access to safe and effective abortion care for those who do not want to be pregnant or give birth while incarcerated. This issue brief examines current state laws regarding access to abortion in carceral facilities in the states where abortion is generally available by law.
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), has indicated that he may lift the FDA’s ban on the interstate sale of raw milk and introduce voluntary raw milk standards for states to adopt. To prepare for these potential federal regulatory changes, states should be aware of their authority to regulate the intrastate sale of raw milk and consider implementing regulations that further minimize consumer risk. This Fact Sheet provides a background on raw milk and potential federal regulatory changes, along with strategies for states to prepare for this change.
Gun violence, accidental and intentional is the number one killer of children and teens in the U.S., surpassing all other causes of death, including car crashes. While access to firearms in the home is a significant contributing factor, the majority of U.S. gun owners do not practice safe firearm storage. There are no federal laws requiring the safe storage of guns. However, several states have passed Safe Storage laws, which are associated with significantly reduced risk of youth injury and death from firearms.
School-entry vaccination requirements have proven to be one of the most effective public health tools for reducing childhood illness, preventing premature deaths, and controlling the spread of infectious diseases across populations. While recent shifts in federal leadership raise concerns about the future of national immunization efforts, the authority and responsibility to maintain vaccine mandates largely rest with state and local governments. This Fact Sheet outlines how states are well-positioned to uphold and adapt their vaccination policies to protect public health, regardless of federal changes.
Despite the recognized health benefits and minimal risk of fluoridation, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., the recently confirmed Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), has announced that “the Trump White House will advise all U.S. water systems to remove fluoride from public water." Removing drinking water fluoridation risks diminishing oral health overall and exacerbating existing oral health disparities. Children from low-income households are much more likely to have untreated cavities than children from higher income households. This Fact Sheet will discuss the federal government’s power to regulate fluoride in drinking water. It will also discuss the role of state and local government in this space
As a result of the Supreme Court decision in Dobbs, advocates on both sides of the abortion issue turned to state constitutions to determine the contours of a right to abortion or to make clear no such right exists under state law. When abortion was on the ballot in 2022, voters in several states rallied to enshrine the right to abortion in state constitutions and rejected attempts to further restrict abortions in their states. In the wake of these successful ballot measures, state legislators throughout the country have sought to amend ballot initiative processes ahead of the 2024 elections. This fact sheet outlines recent proposed amendments by several states that are intended to thwart pro-abortion ballot initiatives.
