Public Health Law Research: Exploring Law in Public Health Systems

Author(s): Jennifer K. Ibrahim, Scott Burris and Scott Hays

Source: Journal of Public Health Management and Practice, Vol. 18, No. 6, ISSUE FOCUS:
Public Health Services and Systems Research (November/December 2012), pp. 499-505
Published by: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/45038220
Accessed: 13-11-2022 08:14 UTC

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide
range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and
facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
https://about.jstor.org/terms

Lippincott Williams & Wilkins is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend
access to Journal of Public Health Management and Practice

This content downloaded from 15.206.238.150 on Sun, 13 Nov 2022 08:14:24 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 Public Health Law Research: Exploring Law in
Public Health Systems
Jennifer K. Ibrahim, PhD, MPH; Scott Burris, JD; Scott Hays, PhD

nated effort to strengthen public health research and

public health systems has long been a matter of interest practice, has substantially changed matters. With fund-
ing from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and
The to public publtoic publimportance healandth heal
ic health lawyers practitthioners,
systems
but empiofriclalawyers law in has the and long organization practitioners, been a matter and but operation of empirical interest of
the active assistance and cooperation of key research
research on law as a factor in health system performance has
and practice organizations, the foundation has been
been limited in quantity and sophistication. The emergence of laid for a robust program of research methods devel-
Public Health Law Research and Public Health Systems and opment and dissemination to build the evidence base
for law as a useful tool and reliable structural compo-
Services Research within a coordinated effort to strengthen
nent of public health practice. This article introduces
public health research and practice has dramatically changed
PHLR as an integral part of public health systems and
matters. This article introduces Public Health Law Research as services research. We provide an overview of the grow-
an integral part of Public Health Systems and Services Research, ing field of PHLR and the resources being developed
by the PHLR program to facilitate research that will
discusses the challenges of integrating the 2 fields, and
generate evidence explicating the influence of law in
highlights 2 examples of current research that demonstrate the
public health practice. The article then discusses the
benefits of an integrated approach to improve the use of law in challenges of integrating PHLR and PHSSR and illus-
public health practice. trates using 2 current studies how that integration can
illuminate and improve the use of law in public health
keywords: health departments, infrastructure, public health practice.
law

• Building the Field of PHLR

Public health law research is a nascent field. While there

The importance of law in the organization and op- has been commentary/scholarship, and empirical stud-
eration of public health systems has been emphasized ies regarding public health law for several decades,
in 3 major Institute of Medicine reports since 1988, 13 the literature is found in pockets across many different
and it has long been a matter of interest to legal schol- fields. There is a need for researchers interested in pub-
ars and health care practitioners.4"6 Despite continued lic health law to come together to address challenges to
interest, empirical research on law as a factor in health doing this type of interdisciplinary research and drive
system performance has been limited in quantity and innovation in the methodologies used to evaluate the
sophistication. The few researchers undertaking work effects of law. Public health law research is defined as
in this area have had little support in terms of funding "the scientific study of the relation of law and legal
or a community of colleagues with shared interest in
the development of tools and the advancement of legal
knowledge within public health systems. Author Affiliations: Temple University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (Dr Ibrahim
and Mr Burris): and University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (Dr Hays).
The emergence of the Public Health Law Research
Funding for this article was provided through a grant from the Robert Wood
(PHLR) program and the Public Health Systems and Johnson Foundation.
Services Research (PHSSR) program, within a coordi-
The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Correspondence: Jennifer K. Ibrahim, PhD, MPH, Temple University, 1301

J Public Health Management Practice, 2012, 18(6), 499-505 Cecil B. Moore Ave, Philadelphia, PA 19122 (jibrahim@temple.edu).
Copyright © 2012 Wolters Kluwer Health | Lippincott Williams & Wilkins DOI: 1 0.1 097/PHH.0b01 3e31 825ce8f6

489

This content downloaded from 15.206.238.150 on Sun, 13 Nov 2022 08:14:24 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
500 I Journal of Public Health Management and Practice
practices to population health."7 "Interventional pub-
lic health laws" (such as no-smoking or menu labeling
laws) are developed as a tool for promoting healthier
environments or behaviors. "Incidental public health
laws" are developed for primary purposes other than
public health (finance, zoning, criminal law) but, in-
cidentally, have positive or negative consequences for
health. "Infrastructural law" establishes the powers,
duties, and organizational features of public health
agencies.8 The primary link with PHSSR is "infrastruc-
tural" public health law.
The importance of infrastructural law has been rec-
ognized in major planning documents such as Healthy
People 2010 and Healthy People 2020, 910 calling for eval-
uation of the impact of laws on the delivery of essential
public health services. The 2011 Institute of Medicine
report For the Public's Health : Revitalizing Law and Policy
to Meet New Challenges goes a step further and also
calls for adequate access to legal counsel for health
officials; evaluation of the health effects and costs of
legislation, regulations, and policies before and after
implementation; and better research methods to assess
the strength of evidence regarding the health impacts
of public policies.3 The PHLR program is working to
address these challenges.
• The PHLR Program
The PHLR program, founded in 2009, was the first
product of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's
comprehensive and farsighted program of support for
the effective use of law in public health. Building on
investments in exemplary programs such as the Pub-
lic Health Institute and the National Policy and Le-
gal Analysis Network, the foundation's investment in
public health law also includes the Network for Pub-
lic Health Law11 and the Partnership for Public Health
Law, which brings together major public health part-
ners, including the American Public Health Associa-
tion, the Association of State and Territorial Health
Officers (ASTHO), the National Association of City &
County Health Officials (NACCHO), and the National
Association of Local Boards of Health (NALBOH). The
strong ties to these organizations has helped PHLR to
prioritize areas of greatest need to build the field of
PHLR and to ensure that the research generated is both
informing public health practice and driven by public
health practice.
The PHLR program is working to build the field of
PHLR by funding research, improving research meth-
ods, and making evidence on the influence of law on
population health more accessible to policy makers,
the media, and the public.12 The PHLR program is fo-
cused on addressing the barriers to conducting empiri-
This content downloaded from 15.206.238.150 on Sun, 13 Nov 2022 08:14:24 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
cal research on the public health law by developing the
methods infrastructure for the field. Drawing from dis-
ciplines including law, public health, economics, crimi-
nal justice, psychology, political science, and sociology,
the PHLR National Program Office has created a suite
of online methods monographs and short videos.13 A
book devoted to PHLR methods is scheduled for pub-
lication in early 2013.14
Similar to the data needs regarding health depart-
ment performance noted in the field of PHSSR, the
lack of data regarding public health laws was identi-
fied as a major barrier to advancing the field of PHLR.
Therefore, the PHLR program's first methods mono-
graph defined a systematic process for collecting and
coding laws to develop research-ready legal datasets.15
Grantee research and additional data collection within
the National Program Office has continued to refine
the approach and suggest new uses for coded legal
information.16,17 All legal data sets funded through the
PHLR program or created by the National Program Of-
fice are available at no cost on the PHLR program Web
site as Excel or SPSS files.18
The PHLR program is also actively working to get
evidence regarding the impact of public health laws
on organizations and populations into the hands of
practitioners and policy makers. One-page evidence
briefs summarize the findings of systematic reviews
of well-studied legal interventions and direct readers
to examples of the underlying statutes.19 In response
to emerging issues, PHLR co-hosts webinars with the
Network for Public Health Law to discuss the evidence,
implications, and research questions related to hot top-
ics such as distracted driving and mental health and
firearms. Finally, PHLR publishes "Theory, Practice and
Evidence" papers that describe the current state of the
knowledge on a topic of public health law interest and
defines the agenda for future research.
• Integrating PHLR and PHSSR
The PHLR and PHSSR programs share the goal of
improving the quality and usefulness of research on
the laws that establish, empower, and constrain pub-
lic health agencies. Following a review of the exist-
ing PHSSR literature, collaborators from the PHLR and
PHSSR programs identified a lack of true conceptual in-
tegration in infrastructural PHLR. Researchers trained
in public health rarely, if ever, draw on general empir-
ical legal theory or research tools to understand how
law shapes the process and outputs of public health
systems; sociolegal scholars rarely study public health
systems or deploy the concepts and measures that
have emerged from years of research on public health
system performance. Continuing discussion yielded a
 Public Health Law Research I SOI

framework to promote integration of theory and tools to have a very different attitude to using legal authority
from the 2 fields.20 The main focus of the integrated than one who believes judges to be fair and neutral.33
framework is on the mechanisms by which law and Research drawing upon constitutive approaches can
legal authority affect public health agency and system produce a much sharper picture of how people and
performance - an unchartered area that opens the door groups in the public health system understand their le-
for a whole new body of research on the role of infras- gal roles and authority to implement laws, their ability
tructural law. Both PHLR and PHSSR invite research in to act within a legal framework, and the very nature of
3 key areas: (1) the role of law in shaping the organi-the legal framework itself.34 As we suggest in the ex-
zation, powers, duties, and limitations of public healthamples to follow, the sociolegal theory offers a way to
agencies and thereby their functioning and ultimatelyidentify actionable differences between health agencies
their impact on public health; (2) the way that publicthat effectively use their existing powers and are will-
health system characteristics influence the implemen-ing to engage in developing new legal interventions
tation of interventional public health laws; and (3) theand those that do not have an appetite for law or policy
individual and system characteristics that influence theinnovation.

ability of public health systems and their community

partners to develop and secure enactment of legal ini-
tiatives to advance public health. • TWo Examples of PHLR Related to Public
Research at the intersection of PHSSR and PHLR Health Practice
asks, in broad terms, how the input of legal authority -
the legal powers granted to a public health agency The key to the integration of these 2 fields is an in-
to act - influences the output of public health terdisciplinary
agency approach that brings together the best
activities, such as the 10 Essential Public Health theory and methods from empirical studies of law and
Services,21 and ultimately, population health outcomes. legal systems to study health systems and to take ad-
Likewise, many data sets, from national Vital Health vantage of the advances in frameworks and measures
Statistics22 to the County Health Rankings,23 mayfrom be studies of public health systems and service de-
used to measure the ultimate population health impact livery. In this section, we describe 2 current studies that
of health systems performance. The PHLR program illustrate the kind of integration we envision: one study
makes its contribution to understanding this process deploys the sociolegal theory at the micro level, exam-
by illuminating how health systems can maximize ining the collaboration on public health law within health
use of their legal authority and law-making potential. departments, and one macro-level study builds from
The path from law to agency activity - the imple- the PHSSR concept of structural capacity to employ a
mentation process - is mediated by a variety of well- taxonomy of public health governance systems (includ-
identified nonlegal factors, such as financing, human ing composition, powers, and duties) to determine the
resources, and availability of technology, that collec- effect of legal structural arrangements on population
tively may be referred to as "structural capacity." These
health outcomes. Both studies address important ques-
have been well defined and studied in the PHSSR
tions that have been raised by public health practition-
literature.24"26 Public health law research suggests, how-
ers in various settings but have never been researched
ever, that implementation also be theorized as further.
being
mediated by "legal capacity." Legal capacity includes
what has been previously investigated in PHSSR as
Legal meaning and legal action within
"legal competencies" or the objective knowledge that
health departments
individuals possess about the law and their skill in ap-
plying their knowledge in practice.27 29 In general The nature
em-and extent of legal support available to
pirical legal research, however, law is seen as far healthmore
officers have long been seen by public health
than a body of information or a discreet set law of experts
skills as a matter of fundamental importance,
useful in achieving specific ends. Law in thisbut broader
research in this area is still relatively new. Both the
research tradition is understood to be "constitutive" - NACCHO and the ASTHO conduct annual surveys of
that is, to shape individual attitudes and organizational
their membership; in 2010, the profiles included 2 ques-
culture.30 Law contributes powerfully to people's ideas tions about legal support. Among the local health de-
of right and wrong, ideas that can influence behavior partments (LHDs), 89% reported attorneys or legal staff
even when law is not explicitly evoked.31 People's being be- assigned to them by local government (66%), the
liefs about how rules are made and enforced, as much ashealth agency (23%), or the state Attorney General
state
or more than their objective knowledge of those rules, (9%); 9% employ their own in-house legal counsel or
influence whether they obey them or not.32 A health staff,
of- 15% contract with outside attorneys or legal staff,
ficer who sees law as a "rigged game" may be expected
and 1% reported having no legal staff.35 Among the

This content downloaded from 15.206.238.150 on Sun, 13 Nov 2022 08:14:24 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
602 I Journal of Public Health Management and Practice

state health departments (SHDs), just more than 60% cials are typically trained in public health or medicine
reported employing their own attorneys within their and not formally trained in law. While leadership train-
own legal department and just less than 60% reported ings have been available for quite some time38 and have
being assigned legal counsel from the state's Attorney been shown to improve health officials' ability to com-
General; less than 20% reported working with attor- municate the law, understand the social and political
neys employed by the local government, contracting implications of the law, and advocate for the enforce-
with outside attorneys or some other arrangement.36 ment of existing laws,39 such trainings are provided at
According to the 2010 NACCHO profile, most LHDs a single point in time and not all health officials have
report working with legal counsel for representation access or time to attend. Moreover, such trainings help
on legal matters (76%), to secure informal advice on le- individuals to understand laws that currently exist as
gal matters (71%), for formal opinions on legal matters opposed to providing training both on how to think
(66%), or assistance in drafting legal matters (55%).35 about law and on how to use law as a tool to advance
The 2010 ASTHO profile is similar, with more than health.
90% of SHDs reporting work with legal counsel for By examining collaboration on public health law
formal opinions on laws, requesting informal advice within health departments, PHLR has the opportu-
on legality or constitutionality of laws, or for assistance nity to move beyond evaluating just legal capacity
in drafting laws.36 and learning more about legal consciousness. Drawing
These findings, valuable as they are in establishing a from the sociolegal theory, legal consciousness encom-
baseline, raise more questions than they answer. They passes an individual's ideas about law and the way
tell us nothing about the quality of the advice or the re- in which laws is experienced by the individual30 33 -
lationship, the satisfaction of the lawyer and the health in a nutshell, how individuals think about the law.
department as the client, or how any of these elements For health officials who are likely to have limited, if
are influenced by the organizational structure of the le- any, training in law, legal consciousness may largely
gal representation or other agency factors. Answering be developed in relation to interactions with associ-
these questions is the next step in determining the cur- ated legal counsel; this raises questions regarding the
rent state of legal representation for health officers and nature of the relationship between legal counsel and
identifying ways to improve the relationship and the health officials. Some health officials may not think
use of law in health systems. Public health law research about the law and only "deal with it" when it be-
is working to answer these questions and then be able comes necessary. Rather than being reactive to a vi-
to use the information collected and link with data on olation of the law or the threat of litigation, health
health department characteristic and performance toofficials who are actively thinking about the law in
see whether public health legal collaboration can in- routine work might reach out to legal counsel to ex-
fluence the successful delivery of core public health plore options of how to use law to address a health
services and functions. issue.

The PHLR program has collaborated with the Similarly, while legal counsels have expertise in le-
gal concepts and the application of such concepts,
ASTHO and the NACCHO to study the health officer-
lawyer relationship in all 50 SHDs and a sampletheir approach and thinking about public health may
of LHDs. The ASTHO SHD classification, which come solely from interactions with public health of-
is based on agency organizational and governance
ficials. Some lawyers who work with health depart-
characteristics,37 was used to draw the stratified ran-
ments infrequently may respond only to legal chal-
dom sample of states in which a sample of LHDs was lenges or reviews of contracts. Alternatively, legal
drawn. Through brief electronic surveys and follow- counsel with sustained interaction with health offi-
cials might reach out proactively and make recom-
up semistructured interviews, the study probes the fre-
mendations on how law or legal interpretation of
quency and nature of interactions, financial and organi-
zational arrangements, the way in which each member statutory authorities might enhance health depart-
of the pair thinks about law in the context of publicment performance. For example, in enforcing sanita-
health, and the perception of how the other member of codes in restaurants, there is the potential for the
tion
the pair thinks about law. authority of the health department to come in conflict
Consistently, both parties have been taken aback with the licensing and inspection agency when a busi-
when invited to participate in the study because thisness must be shutdown. Lawyers and health officials
is not a common topic of discussion in public healthcould
re- work collaboratively to revisit the statutory lan-
guage or to draft proactive memorandums of under-
search, and, yet, they are eager to share their thoughts
on how such a relationship could facilitate more effec-
standing with the other agency so as to prevent such a
tive enforcement of the law, interpretation of existing
dispute in the future. The current study is just a starting
law, and development of new laws. Public health offi-point for a future research agenda that integrates the

This content downloaded from 15.206.238.150 on Sun, 13 Nov 2022 08:14:24 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 Public Health Law Research I 508

sociolegal theory into research on public health depart- The study examines whether a board is a majority of
ment performance. health care professionals or a majority of "political"
office holders. A county may also have boards com-
posed mostly of community leaders or citizens, but this
Impact of LHD structure and policy on public could not be measured with the available data. Au-
health outcomes thority, empowerment, and composition are assessed
for each county in the study and used to create a tax-
According to a study commissioned by the National
onomy of health department governance, resulting in
Coordinating Center for PHSSR, 9 types based on unique and relevant combinations
of these 3 concepts. To maximize the comparability of
While there is limited evidence demonstrating that
organizational variables influence performance and
results from across state systems, the study relies on
capacity, the evidence does not yet exist to explain the a measure of county health derived from the County
impact of these variables on local community health Health Rankings.23 To assess whether counties that gov-
status. Thus, there exists a need for studies that explore ern differently have a tendency to be healthier, the
variation in practice related to organization structure as study uses this classification system to compare county-
these investigations will provide evidence of the
level health outcomes in 4 uniquely identified counties
strengths and limitation of these typologies and the
relationship of structural variations with community selected from 41 states for which health jurisdictions
health outcomes.40^ match county boundaries (including jurisdictions with
multiple county boundaries).
Here we present a macro-level study conducted by re- Results of this type of research, at the nexus of
searchers at the University of Illinois that addresses PHSSR and PHLR, can help inform current policy
this gap in the existing literature.41 Consistent with the choices regarding structural reform. Two reforms that
PHLR-PHSSR integrated framework,20 the study as- are quite commonly discussed and implemented to-
sumes that LHD governance affects population health day are consolidation and accreditation. Policy mak-
by establishing the policies, priorities, budgets, and ers seek to improve the efficiency of public health by
other parameters by which the LHD can carry out its consolidating jurisdictions - particularly smaller, ru-
essential functions. But do different legal structural ar- ral jurisdictions - and creating more regional health
rangements make a measurable difference in popula- departments. Do regional-based health departments
tion health outcomes? achieve better health outcomes? And if regionaliza-
A key methodological challenge in studying local tion proceeds, how should these new regional health
health governance is the "extreme variability" in lo- departments be governed? Alternatively, this research
cal public health structures; they vary in organiza-can inform health officials and political leaders whether
tional structure, including composition, powers, and states with highly centralized systems have better or
duties.35 42 To address this methodological barrier, thisworse health outcomes; this could recommend changes
study examines the many different forms of gover- that might lead to greater state-level centralization or
nance across the states and creates a taxonomy of lo- to greater decentralization.
cal public health governance systems accounting for Understanding what types of governance structures
the legal parameters of authority, empowerment, andhave the greatest positive influence on health could
composition - 3 key dimensions of governance. also inform accreditation standards. For example, how
In this study, authority refers to the level of authority - should local boards of health be structured to maximize
local, county, or state - on which local public health positive health outcomes? Should they be composed of
governance rests. Empowerment, derived from author-health care professionals or of community leaders and
ity, refers to the degree of power a particular unit pos- elected officials; or of some balance between the 2? Are
sesses. The taxonomy focuses on the level of empower-local boards of health a useful political entity that ac-
ment of the local board of health; however, this concept tually can improve health, or are they even necessary?
could also be applied to counties or states. Authority This research can address most of the relevant ques-
and empowerment are themselves derived from cod- tions.
ing the locus of different powers relative to LHD gov-To date, in-depth, systematic study of local health
ernance. These powers include the power to grant fi-governance has been hampered by a lack of solid data.
nal approval for hiring (and potentially firing) staff, toBuilding a taxonomy classifying legal authority for
grant final authorization for a health department bud-local health governance contributes to a systematic
get, to issue rules and regulations, and to set local fees.approach and can be a starting point for further
Finally, composition refers to the composition of a localhealth governance research. And understanding the
board of health (where present) and assesses majorityrole and importance of governance infrastructure
control of that board. and the different forms of governance can contribute

This content downloaded from 15.206.238.150 on Sun, 13 Nov 2022 08:14:24 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
504 I Journal of Public Health Management and Practice

to our understanding of how public health systems REFERENCES

should ideally be structured for optimal local health
1 . Institute of Medicine. The Future of Public Health . Washington,
outcomes. Research that contributes to understanding DC: The National Academies Press; 1988.
associations between governance and health out- 2. Institute of Medicine. The Future of the Public's Health in
comes helps move the fields of public health systems the 21st Century . Washington, DC: The National Academies
and services research and public health practice Press; 2002. http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php7record_
forward. id=10548&page=l. Accessed February 1, 2012.
3. Institute of Medicine. For the Public's Health: Revitalizing Law
and Policy to Meet New Challenges. Washington, DC: The Na-
tional Academies Press; 2011.
• Conclusion 4. Gostin LO. Public Health Law: Power ; Duty, Restraint. 2nd ed.
Berkeley, CA: University of California Press; 2008.
5. Gostin LO, Burris S, Lazzarini Z. The law and the public's
Health departments across the nation are in various
health: a study of infectious disease law in the United States.
states of crisis, as funding is diminishing and organiza-Columbia Law Rev. 1999;99(1):59-128.
tional autonomy is being reconsidered.43 The emerg- 6. Tobey J. Public Health Law: A Manual of Law for Sanitarians.
ing evidence on the influence of law on health de- 2nd ed. New York, NY: Commonwealth Press; 1939.
partment performance may help health officials to be 7. Burris S, Wagenaar A, Swanson J, Ibrahim J, Wood J, Mello M.
more effective and better leverage existing powers toMaking the case for laws that improve health: a framework
deliver the essential public health services by think- for public health law research. Milbank Q. 2010;88(2):169-
ing more carefully about using law within health de- 210.
partments and the relation of legal structure and au-8. Moulton AD, Mercer SL, Popovic T„ et al. The scientific
thority to performance. There is a clear need for more basis for law as a public health tool. Am ] Public Health.
2009;99(l):17-24.
evidence regarding the influence of law on the perfor-
9. Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, US. De-
mance and routine function of health departments; this
partment of Health and Human Services. Healthy People2010.
need has implications for researchers and practitioners
Washington, DC: US Department of Health and Human Ser-
alike.
vices; 2010. http://www.healthypeople.gov/2010/default.
First, for practitioners, this means a greater role in htm. Accessed March 14, 2011.
driving the research agenda and the interpretation10. ofOffice of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, US
results. Findings regarding legal infrastructure should Department of Health and Human Services. Healthy People
not be limited solely to academic interpretation but 2020. Washington, DC: US Department of Health and
should also include consideration of the practical im- Human Services; 2011. http://www.healthypeople.gov/
plications for health departments and the public over- 2020/topicsobjectives2020/objectiveslist.aspx?topicid=35.
Accessed March 14, 2011.
all. For example, as local and state health agencies are
11. The Network for Public Health Law. The Network for Pub-
thinking through movement toward sharing of services
lic Health Law: Ideas. Experience, Practical answers, http://
and accreditation, law is certainly a viable tool to facil-
www.networkforphl.org/. Published 2012. Accessed Febru-
itate such efforts.44 Through partnerships with practi-
ary 1 , 2012.
tioners through the Network for Public Health Law11 12. Burris S, Anderson E. Making the case for laws that improve
and Practice-Based Research Networks, PHLR has po- health: the work of the public health law research national
sitioned itself to work closely with practitioners to en-program office. J Law Med Ethics. 2011;39(suppl sl):15-20.
sure relevant and timely evidence. 13. Public Health Law Research. Methods guides, http://
For researchers, the movement toward more and publichealthlawresearch.org/methods-guides. Published
more sophisticated research on infrastructural law2012. Accessed February 10, 2012.
presents numerous possibilities. In the tradition 14.
ofBurris S, Wagenaar A, eds. Public Health Law Research: Theory
PHSSR, scholars can draw from organizational the-and Methods. San Francisco, CA: Wiley-Jossey Bass. In press.
15. Tremper C, Thomas S, Wagenaar AC. Measuring law for eval-
ories but, for the first time, really think about how
uation research. Eval Rev. 2010;34(3):242-266.
such approaches interact with the legal theory. A more
16. Ibrahim JK, Anderson ED, Burris SC, Wagenaar AC. State
careful examination of the law itself and what in-
laws restricting driver use of mobile communications de-
dividual provisions mean for the behavior and vices:
per- "distracted-driving" provisions, 1992-2010. Am J Prev
formance of a health agency has largely beenMed.
ab- 201 1 ;40(6):659-665.
sent from the published literature, but it is certainly
17. Public Health Law Research. Legal mapping, http://
needed. The studies described here exemplify apublichealthlawresearch.org/methodology/legal-mapping.
new
research agenda that can illuminate the influencePublished
of 2012. Accessed February 10, 2012.
public health law on organizational function and18.the
Public Health Law Research. Datasets, http://
role of health departments in driving public healthpublichealthlawresearch.org/datasets.
law Published 2012.
innovation. Accessed February 1, 2012.

This content downloaded from 15.206.238.150 on Sun, 13 Nov 2022 08:14:24 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 Public Health Law Research I 505

19. Public Health Law Research. Evidence briefs: public health 33. Ewick P, Silbey S. The Common Place of Law: Stories From Ev-
topics, http: / / publichealthlawresearch.org/public-health- eryday Life. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press; 1998.
topics. Published 2012. Accessed February 10, 2012. 34. YngvessonB. Making law at the doorway: the clerk, the court,
20. Burris SB, Scutchfield FD, Mays G, Ibrahim JK. Moving and the construction of community in a New England town.
from intersection to integration: public health law research Law Soc Rev. 1988;22:409-448.
and public health systems and services research. Milbank Q. 35. National Association of County & City Health Officials.
2012;90(2):375-408. 2010 National Profile of Local Health Departments, http://
21. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 10 Essen- www.naccho .org / topics / infrastructure / profile / resources /
tial public health services, http://www.cdc.gov/nphpsp/
2010report/upload/2010_Profile_main_report-web.pdf.
essentialServices.html. Published 2010. Accessed March 4,
Published 2011. Accessed February 5, 2012.
2011. 36. Association of State and Territorial Health Officials
22. National Center for Health Statistics. Vital statistics data (ASTHO). ASTHO Profile of State Public Health, http://
www.astho.org/uploadedFiles/_Publications/Files/
available online, http: / / www.cdc.gov/ nchs/ data_access/
Survey_Research/ASTHO_State_Profiles_Single%5Bl%5D%
Vitalstatsonline.htm. Published 2011. Accessed February 20,
2012. 201o%20res.pdf. Published 2011. Accessed February 5, 2012.
23. Mobilizing Action Toward Community Health. County 37. Shah G, Sellers K, Leep C, Pearsol J, Kronstadt J, Brown A.
health rankings, http://www.coimtyhealthrankings.org/. Governance classification of state and local public health de-
Published 2011. Accessed February 20, 2012. partments. Presented at: 2011 Keeneland Conference; 2011;
24. Mays GP, Halverson P, Miller CA. Assessing the perfor- Keeneland, KY.
mance of local public health systems: a survey of state health 38. Scutchfield FD, Spain C, Pointer DD, Hafey JM. The public
agency efforts. J Public Health Manag Pract. 1998;4(4):63-78. health leadership institute: leadership training for state and
25. Mays GP, McHugh MC, Shim K„ et al. Getting what you local health officers. J Public Health Policy. 1995;16(3):304-323.
pay for: public health spending and the performance of es-39. Saleh SS, Williams D, Balougan M. Evaluating the effective-
sential public health services. J Public Health Manag Pract. ness of public health leadership training: the NEPHLI expe-
2004;10(5):435-443. rience. Am J Public Health. 2004;94(7):1245-1249.
26. Mays GP, Scutchfield FD, Bhandari MW, Smith SA. Un-40. National Coordinating Center for Public Health Services and
derstanding the organization of public health delivery Systems Research. A Summary of PHSSR Systematic Reviews
systems: an empirical typology. Milbank Q. 2010;88(1): Commissioned by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Lexing-
81-111. ton, KY: National Coordinating Center for Public Health Ser-
27. Lichtveld M, Hodge JG Jr, Gebbie K, Thompson FE Jr, Loos vices and Systems Research; 2010.
DI. Preparedness on the frontline: what's law got to do with41. Public Health Law Research. What is the impact of lo-
it? J Law Med Ethics. 2002;30:184-188. cal health department structure and policy on public
28. Gebbie KM, Hodge JG Jr, Meier BM„ et al. Improving com- health outcomes? http://publichealthlawresearch.org/
petencies for public health emergency legal preparedness. J duration / 30-months / grantee-project / impact-local-health-
Law Med Ethics. 2008;36:52-56. department-structure-and-policy-health-outcom. Published
29. Center for Law and the Public's Health. Core legal 2011. Accessed February 10, 2012.
competencies for public health professionals, http:// 42. Mays GP, Smith SA, Ingram RC, Racster LJ, Lamberth CD,
www.publichealthlaw.net / Training / TrainingPDFs / Lovely ES. Public health delivery systems: evidence, un-
PHLCompetencies.pdf. Published 2001. Accessed February certainty, and emerging research needs. Am J Prev Med.
28, 2012. 2009;36(3):256-265.
30. Silbey S. After legal consciousness. Ann Rev Law Soc Sci. 43. Novick L. Local health departments: time of challenge and
2005;1:323-368. change. J Public Health Manag Pract. 2012;18(2):103-105.
31. Engel D, Munger F. Rights, remembrance and the reconcili- 44. Matthews GW, Markiewicz M, Beitsch LM. Legal frame-
ation of difference. Law Soc Rev. 1996;30:7-53. works supporting public health department accreditation:
32. Tyler TR. Why People Obey the Law. New Haven, CT: Yale lessons learned from 10 states. J Public Health Manag Pract.
University Press; 1990. 2012;18(1):E8-E16.

This content downloaded from 15.206.238.150 on Sun, 13 Nov 2022 08:14:24 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms