This page features links to resources of special interest to researchers in public health law. PHLR methods resources help both experienced and new researchers in all phases of a project. Potential applicants for funding – and others interested in our program – can find out what we have funded in the past and can browse frequently asked questions as they craft their proposals. There are also specific instructions for grantees on how to meet our requirements for dissemination, reporting and publicly acknowledging PHLR support.
PHLR Methods
Creating Legal Data for Public Health Monitoring and Evaluation: Delphi Standards for Policy Surveillance
As part of a larger effort to develop tools and methods for public health law research, PHLR, working in collaboration with CDC’s Office of State, Tribal, Local, and Territorial Support (OSTLTS), ChangeLab Solutions, the Network for Public Health Law, and the Public Health Law Center, surveyed a Delphi panel of experts to define basic standards and practices in the conduct of policy surveillance. Results are reported here in accordance with accepted methods for Delphi studies
Conceptual Confusion Leads Policy Evaluation Astray
In this editorial in JAMA Health Forum, Scott Burris, Rosalie Liccardo Pacula, and Alexander Wagenaar present a narrow definition of policy that focuses on its core function and in support of accurate evaluation of those policies and their implementation. The authors define policy as: a governmental or organizational instrument for promoting the general adoption of a desirable behavior or standard.
The Future of Research in Legal Epidemiology
Scientific strength is crucial to the field of legal epidemiology in several ways. Better research makes the field more attractive to new entrants, facilitates interdisciplinary collaboration, increases the chances the major health research funders will support investigation of law, and enhances the credibility of research results for informing policy.
The Growing Field of Legal Epidemiology
This commentary describes the emergence of legal epidemiology, its key methods and tools, and the challenges it faces going forward.
What We Have Funded
State Workplace Wellness Laws: A Mapping Study
The research team will use LawAtlas to create a dataset systematically reviewing and analyzing existing state laws and regulations relating to workplace wellness programs. Congress revised the federal law related to employer-based wellness programs, which has spurred national interest that such programs can prevent and control chronic disease and health care costs. However, many gaps and outstanding concerns with the federal law exist, such as a lack of requirement to show program efficacy and concerns over voluntariness.
Youth Sports TBI Laws: Measuring Public Health Impact on Initial and Recurrent Concussions
This study will build upon the research team’s existing work with state laws addressing traumatic brain injury (TBI) and sport-related concussions. It will be the first study to evaluate TBI law data using concussion data from a national surveillance system.
Variations in State Income Support Programs and their Relationship to Preterm Birth in the US
US welfare policy is governed by a labyrinthine set of laws that oversee program eligibility, enrollment procedures and the cash value of benefits received, some established at the federal level, and some delegated to the states. The delegation of the administration of US welfare programs to the states has created wide variations in overall program distributions, which ultimately has a substantial impact on state poverty levels, income inequality and the direct program benefits that people receive.
Law Mapping: Health Issues in Oil and Gas Development
Advances in extractive technologies (hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling) have enabled a rapid expansion in oil and natural gas production through development of tight shale formations in rural, suburban and urban areas. While there is still little research on the health impacts of oil and gas development (e.g., from toxic air pollutants, ground-level ozone, chemical pollution of potable aquifers, etc.), public concern has prompted regulatory review at all levels of government.
Topic:Impact of State Opioid Regulation on Pain Management in Medicare Patients
Many states have responded to the abuse of prescription opioids by developing a set of policies limiting access (e.g., prescription drug monitoring programs). While abuse is a continual concern, opioids play an important role in legitimate pain management: About one-third of the U.S. population struggles with chronic pain.
Capitalizing on Recent Changes to School Immunization Requirements to Improve the Publics’ Health
All states offer medical exemptions to school immunization requirements, and 48 states offer non-medical exemptions. Prior research has shown that easily granting non-medical exemptions has been associated with higher exemption rates, increasing exemption rates, and incidence of pertussis. Several states with historically high rates of exemptions have recently added restrictions to their exemption policies in an effort to reduce the frequency of exemptions and more effectively control disease.
Impact of Public Health Laws on Electronic Disease Surveillance
This project aims to assess the impacts of state and federal laws on the practice of electronic syndromic surveillance (SyS) to monitor disease trends in near “real time.” The project will examine SyS systems operated by state and local health departments and their willingness to share SyS data with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) via the national BioSense system—a CDC-funded Internet “cloud-based” service hosted by the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials.
Public Health and the Contested Legal Terrain of Electronic Cigarettes
Jurisdictions across the country, acting in the context of a federal regulatory void and wide gaps in knowledge about the safety of e-cigarettes, are trying to decide whether and how to regulate the devices. This project is an in-depth, real-time study of policymaking surrounding this issue. The project aims to advance understanding of the policymaking process, particularly with respect to how scientific research evidence is or is not used by decision makers, and to identify the key determinants of policy action on this issue, providing a map of the current policy landscape.
State Pharmacy Laws Affecting Generic Prescription Drug Substitution: Their Effect on Public Health
Research has shown that patients are more likely to adhere to prescription regimens when they are prescribed more affordable generic products. However, state-level drug product selection laws and regulations control whether pharmacists can substitute brand-name drugs with generic versions of the same products. Drug product selection laws vary across states in whether they are automatic or permissive, whether they require patient consent, and whether there are exceptions (carve-outs) for certain drug classes.
Creating a database of state laws on vaccination requirements and exemptions to support the field of PHLR
The team will create a database of vaccine laws, which will facilitate analysis of the relationship between variations in state laws and differences in vaccine coverage and communicable diseases.