By Scott Burris The most important topic we did NOT address in our PHLR methods book was valid methods for rating laws for characteristics like “stringency.” I am not aware of any general work on this. Nonetheless, it is not uncommon for researchers to create scales purporting to measure the distribution of some characteristic(s) over…
By Y. Tony Yang, ScD, LLM, MPH More and more frequently, the media are reporting two potentially related and troubling developments: an alarming increase in outbreaks of deadly infectious vaccine-targeted diseases and the growing refusal by parents to allow their children to be vaccinated. (See this recent U.S. News & World Report article on cases…
By Scott Burris Training lay people to reverse opiate overdose with naloxone continues to gain steam in the evidence base, popular media and legislatures. Here’s a great blog post the covers recent developments and links to a new film. The Open Society Foundations and a group of harm reduction groups have launched a new website to…
By Temple University Center for Public Health Law Research Public Health Law Research has released its fifth call for proposals on studies that focus on the effects of laws and policies on public health. The new call for proposals is available online: www.rwjf.org/cfp/phlr5 The deadline for submitting proposals is July 24, 2013 at 3 p.m. ET….
By Scott Burris A couple weeks ago, I was in a conference room at a global health organization, all ready to give my talk on monitoring and evaluating legal health interventions. The chief of the organization’s formidable M&E operation was my host, and after briefly going through my bio he wound up his introduction by…
By Scott Burris The latest issue of the Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law showcases the range of projects and researchers filling out the field of Public Health Law Research. An excellent introduction by the editors, Michelle Mello and Wendy Parmet, says it better than I could, but here’s a taste: Two studies look…
By Scott Burris Here’s where some in Congress would like us to go: ScienceInsider reports: The new chair of the House of Representatives science committee has drafted a bill that, in effect, would replace peer review at the National Science Foundation (NSF) with a set of funding criteria chosen by Congress. For good measure, it…
By Scott Burris Last week, Northeastern University’s effort to convene a much-needed conference on the future of health policy was a casualty of the successful manhunt for the Boston Marathon bombers. One hardly wants to make too much of a stymied conference given all the human damage of the bombing and its aftermath, but all…
By Scott Burris In recent posts, I have been pointing to research that suggests that government intervention for public health is actually rather popular as a general matter. Now comes a neat paper that takes on the question of whether politicians actually know what their constituents want. I read it as further evidence that our…
By Scott Burris Stephanie Morain and Michelle Mello’s recent paper in the March issue of Health Affairs is an extremely important contribution. It reports on a survey of American adults investigating their support for a range of current health interventions, and finds – contrary to the myth being propagated in politics and the media –…
