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BOH Handbook

Legal Handbook and Public Health Guidebook for Massachusetts Boards of Health

2022 Edition

  • Legal Handbook – 2022 Edition Sponsored by MAHB in partnership with

  • Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health

  • Public Health Guidebook – 2016 Edition Sponsored by MAHB in partnership with

  • Massachusetts Department of Public Health and

  • Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection

The 2022 Legal Handbook Edition includes 17 Chapters, a Bonus Chapter on the first phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, and four Appendices. 

INSTRUCTIONS: After clicking on the button below, you will then be asked to enter your password to open the document on the MAHB Adobe Cloud Server.  The password is sent to your Towns MAHB Contact.  If you do not know the Open Document Password, please contact your MAHB Contact (typically the Health Director, BOH Chair or Health Department Administrator).

You may also call Lynda Ritacco at MAHB at 1-508-643-0234.  State your Town and BOH member of Health Department staff position.  Please note that access to the Legal Handbook is granted if your membership for the current FY is paid.  You also will be given an opportunity to have your Town pay the current FY MAHB membership if still unpaid.  MAHB will resend the Invoice that was sent out last year. 

Once you access the Legal Handbook document, you should become familiar with the navigation options, briefly described below under “Online Navigation Instructions”.

Online Navigation Instructions
This document uses standard Adobe commands and functions.  You should use the bookmarks in the left-hand side menu to easily navigate throughout the book.  There will be three icons visible on the left-side menu.  Under the Home icon, there is a thumbnail icon that will show you the thumbnails for each page.  Just click on the icon arrowhead to turn it from pointing right to pointing down to display all the thumbnail pages.  Then reverse the process to hide all the thumbnail pages. 

Under the thumbnail icon, there is the bookmark icon that will allow you to navigate to all the Chapters and Chapter Sections. Again, use the arrowhead to display and hide the Chapter/Section bookmarks.   You may also use the Table of Contents to rapidly navigate to a Chapter by clicking on the Chapter or section page.  To return to the Table of Contents from any point where you navigated to, click on (Alt, then, back arrow keys).  You may increase or decrease the size of the page and fonts by clicking on  Control + or Control – keys.

The Handbook

All members of MAHB may access the Handbook.  Please remember that the Legal Handbook for Massachusetts Boards of Health is copyrighted by MAHB and may not be copied, printed or distributed except as permitted for the personal use of the MAHB members. Circulation beyond personal use of members is strictly prohibited.

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