The Growing Field of Legal Epidemiology

Burris, Scott; Cloud, Lindsay K; Penn, Matthew

doi:10.1097/phh.0000000000001133

Cited by 22 publications

(33 citation statements)

References 38 publications

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“…Although health policy analysis and policy surveillance methodologies can be used to study the connection between policy and health outcomes, 23,24,55 neither approach offers a process for analyzing multiple overlapping policies applicable to specific settings. 26 Investigating the role of policy in health service settings is challenging when compared to population-wide public health laws, particularly due to the added complexities introduced by regulatory overlap.…”

Section: Implications For Health Services Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…14,25 For example, a recent study of state telehealth laws and opioid prescribing practices found that 17 states had laws to address prescribing limitations, opioid treatment, patient plan review, and professional collaboration, 15 another study compared states' community health worker laws, identifying differences in scope of practice and training requirements. 16 While policy surveillance is an underutilized but potentially useful tool for health services researchers, 23 it does not address the issue of overlapping regulations. 26 Regulatory overlap of assisted living policies can occur through enforcement activities from multiple regulatory agencies or bodies, such as facility licensure by a health and human services agency, state Nurse Practice Acts that govern licensed nurses, and rules from local jurisdictions, such as county zoning regulations.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Health policy analysis has traditionally compared policy adoption across states, such as an analysis of the impact of Medicaid expansion versus nonexpansion, or alternatively, has relied on secondary sources 19,20 . In contrast, legal epidemiology provides methods to quantitatively measure law at a specific point in time 21‐23 . Policy surveillance, an approach within legal epidemiology, uses legal research methods to collect and map statutes to examine how policies differ across jurisdictions 21,24 .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…19,20 In contrast, legal epidemiology provides methods to quantitatively measure law at a specific point in time. [21][22][23] Policy surveillance, an approach within legal epidemiology, uses legal research methods to collect and map statutes to examine how policies differ across jurisdictions. 21,24 Public health researchers have used policy surveillance output in comparative analyses, both those that track policy changes across jurisdictions and studies linking the policies to the health outcomes of their corresponding populations.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example, a recent study of state telehealth laws and opioid prescribing practices found that 17 states had laws to address prescribing limitations, opioid treatment, patient plan review, and professional collaboration, 15 another study compared states’ community health worker laws, identifying differences in scope of practice and training requirements 16 . While policy surveillance is an underutilized but potentially useful tool for health services researchers, 23 it does not address the issue of overlapping regulations 26 …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 4 more Smart Citations

Connecting policy to licensed assisted living communities, introducing health services regulatory analysis

Smith

Carder

Bucy

et al. 2021

Health Services Research

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Objective: To document dementia-relevant state assisted living regulations and their changes over time as they pertain to licensed care settings.Data Sources: For all states, current directories of licensed assisted living communities and state regulations for each year, 2007-2018, were obtained from state agency websites and Nexis Uni, respectively. Study Design:We identified multiple types of regulatory classifications for each state and documented the presence or absence of specific dementia care provisions in the regulations for each type by study year. Maps and summary statistics were used to compare results to previous research and document change longitudinally. Data Collection/Extraction Methods:We used a policy analysis approach to connect communities listed in directories to applicable regulatory text. Then, we employed policy surveillance and question-based coding to record the presence or absence of specific policies for each classification and study year.Principal Findings: Our team empirically documented provisions requiring dementiaspecific training for administrators and direct care staff, and cognitive impairment screening for each study year. We found that 23 states added one or more of these requirements for one or more license types, but the states that had these provisions for all types of licensed assisted living declined from four to two. Conclusions:We identified significant, previously undocumented, within-state policy variation for assisted living licensed settings between 2007 and 2018. Using the regulatory classification instead of the state as the unit of analysis revealed that many policy adoptions were limited to dementia-designated settings. This suggests that people living with dementia in general assisted living are not afforded the same protections. We call our approach health services regulatory analysis and argue that it has the potential to identify gaps in existing policies, an important endeavor for health services research in assisted living and other care settings.

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