Resources for Policy Surveillance: A Report Prepared for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Public Health Law Program

Abstract

Law is one of the primary tools used in public health to promote healthier environments and behaviors. Governments at all levels use statutes, regulations and other policies, often in innovative ways, to make our communities healthier and safer. The effective and efficient use of law as a public health intervention depends upon research to evaluate what works and what does not, and diffusion of information to speed the adoption and implementation of laws that improve health. The term “Legal Epidemiology” is apt for this public health law work, capturing both its importance and its scientific nature. Legal epidemiology may be defined as “the scientific study of law as a factor in the cause, distribution and prevention of disease in a population.” Within legal epidemiology, “policy surveillance,” the systematic tracking of policies of public importance, is an emerging practice that supports both scientific evaluation and the diffusion of policies the work for health. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Public Health Law Research program (PHLR), working in collaboration with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Office of State, Tribal, Local, and Territorial Support (OSTLTS), ChangeLab Solutions, The Network for Public Health Law, the Public Health Law Center, and many expert volunteers, undertook a series of research and consultation projects intended to advance the understanding and practice of legal epidemiology at CDC and state, local and tribal health agencies, with special focus on policy surveillance.The results of this work are collected in this report and include:• A Scan of Explicit Legal Recommendations in Federal Guidance Documents, to document the important place of law in the nation’s health strategies;• A Scan of Existing 50 State Survey and Policy Surveillance Resources, to describe the current investment in legal monitoring, and the state of the art;• Criteria for Selecting Policies for Surveillance: Recommendations of an Expert Committee, to provide initial guidance to decision-makers on the wise use of limited legal monitoring resources;• Technical Standards for Policy Surveillance and Legal Datasets: Report of a Delphi Process, to define consensus expert standards for the conduct of scientific legal surveillance; and• Policy Surveillance Competencies (1.0), embodying the expert standards in measurable workforce capacities.Together, these resources provide a foundation for building a stronger, transdisciplinary practice of public health law.