This study presents an empirical analysis of domestic violence case resolution in North Carolina from 2004 to 2010. The study finds that penalities, at least as set at the current levels, do not deter future arrests and convictions.
It finds 44 states and Washington, DC, passed youth sports TBI laws between 2009 and 2012. No state’s youth sports TBI law focuses on primary prevention. Instead, such laws focus on increasing coaches’ and parents’ ability to identify and respond to TBIs and reducing the immediate risk of multiple TBIs.
Aaron Kesselheim, MD, JD, MPH, of the Division of Pharmacoepidemiology & Pharmacoeconomics at Brigham and Women’s Hospital discusses the effects on medical innovation of statutes that provide additional intellectual property rights or related incentives to pharmaceutical, medical device, and biotechnology developers in the U.S.
Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health
Lainie Rutkow, JD, PhD •
Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health
The Attorneys General of the 50 states have considerable legal authority to protect the public’s health, yet their role in the development of health policy is often under-appreciated or misunderstood. This article analyses state Attorneys’ General current powers and provides a logic model that illustrates how the use of these powers can lead to the protection and promotion of the public’s health. The article then provides four brief case studies, to demonstrate how state Attorneys General have used their varied powers to influence policy-making and benefit the public’s health.
Mental illness is a significant global public health issue. Disorders such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and major depression put an enormous strain on afflicted individuals, their caregivers and communities. Yet in some respects, acceptance of mental illness as a key part of the broader field of public health has developed only recently. What is the emerging role of law and policy in addressing the complex problems around mental illness from a public health perspective, and what is the agenda for research to inform those efforts?
Center for Public Health Initiatives, University of Pennsylvania
Legal intervention to influence individual health behavior has increased dramatically since the 1960s. This paper describes the rise of law as a tool of public health, and the scientific research that has assessed and often guided it, with a focus on five major domains: traffic safety, gun violence, tobacco use, reproductive health and obesity. These topical stories illustrate both law’s effectiveness and limitations as a public health tool. They also establish its popularity by the most apt of metrics – the willingness of legislators to enact it.
Increasing concern about obesity and other nutrition-related health problems spurred governments to develop more robust and targeted approaches to foster healthier diet at a population level. Government routinely uses its regulatory power to alter activities and behaviors that influence public health, for example the New York City ban on the use of transfats in restaurants. Yet, in some scenarios, government may more effectively promote positive change through other means, including its purchasing or procurement authority.
Prescription drug overdose is now the leading cause of accidental death. In his Critical Opportunities presentation, Corey Davis, JD, staff attorney at the Network for Public Health Law, suggests that easier access to opioid overdose reversal drugs like naloxone could help prevent overdose deaths.
New Jersey is the first state in the United States to require novice drivers to put a red reflective decal on their license plate as part of their graduated driver’s license law. The decals signal the young driver’s probationary status to other drivers and law enforcement. A study by Allison Curry, PhD, MPH and her colleagues at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia found that New Jersey’s law has prevented more than 1,600 crashes and helped police officers enforce regulations unique to new drivers.
“Smart disclosures” are meant to empower consumers to make smart purchasing decisions by providing them with information about products, such as food nutrition labels or automobile fuel economy labels. But Adam Finkel, ScD explains in his Critical Opportunities presentation that these disclosures are often misleading, inaccurate, incomplete or nonexistent. To be valuable tools for consumers, Finkel suggests that smart disclosures would need to be updated and reevaluated for relevance, accuracy and clarity.
