The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice
Soraya Ghebleh suggests that by making non-medical exemptions for childhood vaccines more difficult to obtain, rates of childhood diseases like pertussis would be less of a threat.
In this Critical Opportunities presentation Michelle Mello, JD, PhD, makes the case that raising the tobacco purchasing age to 21 would aid in reducing minors' tobacco use by 50 percent, which would prevent 10 million people from becoming daily smokers and avoid 3 million premature deaths.
Medical marijuana laws have been suggested as a possible cause of increases in marijuana use among adolescents in the United States. The study results suggest that, in the states assessed (Montana, Rhode Island, Michigan, and Delaware), medical marijuana laws have not measurably affected adolescent marijuana use in the first few years after their enactment. Longer-term results, after medical marijuana laws are more fully implemented, might be different.
This study was conducted with high school football and girls’ soccer athletes playing in fall 2012 and their coaches and parents in 20 urban or rural high schools in Washington State. Sixty-nine percent of concussed athletes reported playing with symptoms, and 40 percent reported that their coach was not aware of their concussion.
This research note explores complications with standard methods to evaluate place-based policing interventions. It identifies and explains issues of boundary misspecification during evaluation as a result of boundary adjustment by police during an intervention.
The study finds that three years after the passage of a concussion law in Washington State, high school football and soccer coaches are receiving substantial concussion education and have good concussion knowledge. The study also shows that concussion education for athletes and parents is more limited, and that football players receive more extensive concussion education than soccer players.
Research Foundation of State University of New York on behalf of University at Buffalo
The study examined whether the source (federal/state/local) or type (restricted/flexible) of funding impacts quality outcome measures linked to mental health of children in foster care. The researchers find that flexible funding is linked to reduced median days in care and days awaiting adoption.
This study concludes that shared-use agreements that include legal clauses to address school concerns about factors such as vandalism, staffing and funding represent a promising strategy for increasing physical activity opportunities in under-resourced neighborhoods where the prevalence of obesity is high.
This paper describes the current state of laws across the United States aimed at combatting concussions, commonly referred to as “traumatic brain injuries” or TBIs, among young athletes. Since 2009, 47 states and Washington, DC, have passed legislation designed to reduce the long-term consequences of TBIs in youth sports.
The study examined how non-medical exemption laws for vaccines required for school or daycare entry impact the incidence rates for the five diseases targeted by the vaccines, and finds that increased levels of vaccinations could reduce whooping cough cases, but did not have a statistically significant impact on the average incidence for measles, mumps, Hib and Hepatitis B.
