Law and urban governance for health in times of rapid change.

Governance is an important factor in urban health, and law is an important element of healthy governance. Law can be an intervention local government wields to influence behavior and shape environments. Law can also be an important target of health promotion efforts: Law and the enforcement and implementation behaviors it fosters can promote unhealthy behaviors and environmental conditions, and can act as a barrier to healthy interventions or practices.

Toward Human Rights and Evidence-Based Legal Frameworks for (Self-Managed) Abortion: A Review of the Last Decade of Legal Reform.

Since the late 1980s, people have safely self-managed their abortions with medication, changing the landscape of abortion. This practice continues to evolve and expand and has been identified as a cause of decline in severe abortion-related morbidity and mortality. However, developments in medical abortion and self-management have yet to be reflected in the way abortion is regulated.

Identifying data for the empirical assessment of law (IDEAL): a realist approach to research gaps on the health effects of abortion law.

Reproductive rights have been the focus of United Nations consensus documents, a priority for agencies like the WHO, and the subject of judgments issued by national and international courts. Human rights approaches have galvanised abortion law reform across numerous countries, but human rights analysis is not designed to empirically assess how legal provisions regulating abortion shape the actual delivery of abortion services and outcomes. Reliable empirical measurement of the health and social effects of abortion regulation is vital input for policymakers and public health guidance for abortion policy and practice, but research focused explicitly on assessing the health effects of abortion law and policy is limited at the global level.

The Litigation Complexity of Posttraumatic Headaches.

Purpose Of Review: This review explores the workings of the legal process in posttraumatic headache (PTH) claims by discussing representative court cases, the approaches taken by both plaintiff and defense attorneys in evaluating a client with PTH, and the role of the expert witness. This discussion also examines the question of whether or not litigation prolongs the symptoms of PTH and concussion, looking at the issues of malingering and the psychological effect of litigation.

Recent Findings: Litigation prolongs recovery of PTH, primarily not from malingering but rather due to the psychological mindset of the plaintiff as created by the litigation process.

Association Between Design Elements of Concussion Laws and Reporting of Sports-Related Concussions Among US High School Athletes, 2009-2017.

Objectives: Studies that evaluate the effectiveness of concussion laws often use only a single variable (ie, presence of the law), failing to account for law complexity. We examined the association between multiple design elements of state concussion laws and rates of sports-related concussion reporting among US high school athletes.

Methods: We derived 3 design elements of concussion laws from the 2009-2017 LawAtlas database: (1) strength of law, (2) number of law revisions, and (3) speed of law adoption.

Global Policy Surveillance: Creating and Using Comparative National Data on Health Law and Policy.

Throughout the world, laws play an important role in shaping population health. Law making is an intervention with measurable effects yet often unfolds without evaluation or monitoring. Policy surveillance-the systematic, scientific collection and analysis of laws of public health significance-can help bridge this gap by capturing important features of law in numeric form in structured longitudinal data sets.

State Laws Governing Syringe Services Programs and Participant Syringe Possession, 2014-2019.

Objective: Law is an important factor in the diffusion of syringe services programs (SSPs). This study measures the current status of, and 5-year change in, state laws governing SSP operations and possession of syringes by participants.

Methods: Legal researchers developed a cross-sectional data set measuring key features of state laws and regulations governing the possession and distribution of syringes across the 50 US states and the District of Columbia in effect on August 1, 2019.

Putting Policy Into Practice: School-Level Compliance With and Implementation of State Concussion Laws.

Context: Each year, approximately 2 million US children 18 years or younger sustain a concussion, a type of mild traumatic brain injury (TBI). Concussions can have detrimental effects on physical, cognitive, emotional, or sleep health.

Policy: Between 2009 and 2014, all 50 US states and Washington, District of Columbia, enacted state concussion laws aimed to increase awareness about concussion and reduce the prevalence and severity of this injury.

Trends Over Time and Jurisdiction Variability in Supplemental Security Income and State Supplementary Payment Programs for Children With Disabilities.

Context: Nearly 1.2 million children with disabilities received federally administered Supplemental Security Income (SSI) payments in 2017. Based on a robust review of research and evaluation evidence and microsimulations, The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine committee identified modifications to SSI (ie, increasing the federal SSI benefit maximum by one-third or two-thirds) as 1 of 10 strategies that could reduce the US child poverty rate, improving child health and well-being on a population level.

Mapping Housing Laws in the United States: A Resource for Evaluating Housing Policies' Impacts on Health.

Context: Safe, stable housing is essential to good health. Housing hazards, including mold, vermin, and lead, can contribute to the development or exacerbation of chronic illnesses such as asthma and neurological disorders. In addition, eviction has been associated with poor physical and mental health outcomes.

Applying the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges' Resolution to Juvenile Probation Reform.

In 2017, the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges (NCJFCJ) passed a resolution advocating for empirically supported juvenile probation reform nationwide. Here, we review the adolescent development and behavioral decision-making research underlying the principles enumerated in the NCJFCJ resolution and describe several of its critical elements. Then, to provide guidance to jurisdictions seeking to revise local policy and practice, we suggest a series of steps that would help juvenile justice professionals translate NCJFCJ resolution principles into innovative probation reform.