Preparing for pandemic influenza: California confronts the legal implications

California Department of Health Services and California Distance Learning Health Network collaborated with the California Conference of Local Health Officers to produce the Pandemic Influenza and Public Health Law: What Public Health Departments Need to Know satellite broadcast and tabletop exercise training. Local health officers, county counsels, school superintendents, hospital administrators, and senior decision makers in California planned for ways stakeholders would make legal use of public health law in case of pandemic emergency. The training provided an opportunity for decision makers to become familiar with statutes and regulations in anticipation of such an event. Finding a legal balance between the need to mandate legal orders for the protection of the common good and the degree of infringement on individual rights was the thematic thread for the training. Although California specific, the instructional modalities and lessons learned from this training program serve as a guide for state and local governments.