Laws to reform police, improve workplace conditions, and establish implicit bias training for health professionals take effect in Maryland on Friday.

Here’s what to know about the new laws:

Anton’s Law

The law is named after 19-year-old Anton Black, who died in police custody on the Eastern Shore in 2018. The officer involved in his killing had 30 use-of-force reports filed against him during his career with police in Dover, Delaware.

The law will make police disciplinary records available through the Maryland Public Information Act. It will also require additional regulations on warrants, such as requiring an explanation to a judge of why the warrant is needed and mandating that no-knock warrants be served between 8 a.m. and 7 p.m. And now, when someone dies at the hands of police in Maryland, an independent investigator will be sent to the scene to sort out what happened. Currently, the Black family is suing the state’s medical examiner’s office alleging that officials “covered up and obscured police responsibility for Anton Black’s death.” The family claims an excessive use of force and racial bias led to Blacks death. They also say medical examiner’s report caused the State’s Attorney to refuse to prosecute or convene a grand jury.

Advocates with Maryland’s American Civil Liberties Union wrote in a press release that the law was one of “most important policy changes needed to ensure that police are held accountable for the abuse of Black people.”

Cylin Young, the policy director for the ACLU of Maryland, told the Baltimore Sun that his organization will be “vigorously” testing the implementation of the new law and will be filing its own strategic requests.

Workplace peace orders

This law will allow employers to file peace orders, or a form of legal protection against any individual, on behalf of employees who experience a violent incident in the workplace, such as assault, stalking, and false imprisonment. The new law aims to prevent people from getting assaulted on the job by patients, clients, and co-workers. These kinds of incidents are big problems in the state — 22,000 incident reports are filed annually to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration; at least 75% of those incidents occur among health care and social service workers.

The bill became particularly important during the pandemic as hospitals grew fuller. Officials with the Maryland Health Association say violent incidents worsened at hospitals during the pandemic.

“Allowing a hospital representative to petition for a peace order on behalf of an employee is another tool to help protect our health care heroes and preserve hospitals as safe places of hope and healing,” Bob Atlas, MHA president and CEO, said in a press release.

Focus on health equity

During the pandemic, state governments were slow to collect and disseminate data on the demographic breakdown of people who tested positive for COVID, were hospitalized, and died. A new law mandates at least $1.7 million a year starting in 2023 to the state’s office of minority health and health disparities, which is responsible for collecting and disseminating data about disease. Under the new law, the office would be tasked with collecting and disseminating data on the racial and ethnic disparities in morbidity and mortality rates for dementia and other diseases every six months. The law also requires health care professionals to receive implicit bias training in order to renew their licenses after April 2022 . A similar law will also allow health care professionals to report their race and ethnicity when they renew their licenses.

The public health law will also ensure that data on health disparities and inequities is available and transparent to the public. While the bill doesn’t exactly explain how it will make the data more accessible, it will require the minority health and health disparities office to meet yearly with the state’s department of health and the state’s commission on health care to examine the collection of health data that includes race and ethnicity, and improve its accessibility to the public.

A third law would establish a state commission on health equity to create a framework for policy changes in health care throughout the state. The commission will be comprised of a state senator, a state delegate, the state’s secretaries from every government agency, a representative from a local health department, and the state’s insurance commissioner. The group will be tasked with evaluating the factors that affect health outcomes such as affordable housing, educational attainment, food insecurity, and transportation. On or before Dec.1 each year, the commission will submit a report to the governor on their progress.