The Newest Federalism and Population Health

Context: American federalism involves decentralized policymaking across federal, state, and local governments. Since the 1980s, changes in those intergovernmental relations, termed “New Federalism,” combined with polarization in policies across state and local governments, resulted in some places being conducive to health while others are not. This Perspective proposes that the country has entered “Newest Federalism” with contemporary changes in intergovernmental relations that carry profound, and largely unstudied, implications for population health.

Method: Drawing on the federalism, health policy, and population health literatures, this Perspective links New Federalism and state policy polarization to the troubling trends and growing disparities in population health since the 1980s. It then identifies three features of the current context, coined the Newest Federalism, that will adversely impact population health.

Findings: Three characteristics of the Newest Federalism are particularly important. These include the erosion of the federal floor, evident in the declining real minimum wage, repeal of federal abortion protections, cuts to SNAP and Medicaid, threats to the Department of Education, and more; formation of cross-state alliances that fill federal policy vacuums in areas such as public health, data privacy, and reproductive rights, but that may themselves widen disparities between states; and growing use of executive orders, agency actions, and waivers to circumvent congressional policymaking. These changes may harm population health overall and disproportionately affect people with limited socioeconomic resources and those living in states that cannot or will not offset federal retrenchment.

Conclusions: Understanding and mitigating the health consequences of the Newest Federalism will require research that examines the combined effects of federal, state, and local policy change, attends to the distributive consequences of cross-state alliances, and informs policymakers and the public about the stakes for population health.