Using data from LawAtlas and the High School Report Injury Online between the 2005-2006 and 2015-2016 academic years, the researchers examined the statistical association between the implementation of state laws addressing concussions and actual concussion rates in high school athletes reported by athletic trainers. The study focused on nine common high-school sports: boys’ football, basketball, soccer, baseball, and wrestling; and girls’ basketball, soccer, softball, and volleyball.
This study examined the consistency and variation in written high school policies addressing youth traumatic brain injuries (more commonly known as concussions) in relation to the three most common components of youth sports traumatic brain injury laws.
This study, published in Injury Epidemiology, finds that bullying victimization increased one year following the passage of an anti-bullying law in Iowa, possibly due to either improved reporting or over-identification, and did not start to go down until three years after the law was implemented.
Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health
Caleb Alexander, MD, MS •
Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health
In the first year that two Florida laws aimed at curbing opioid prescriptions were in effect, the state's top opioid prescribers wrote significantly fewer prescriptions of this type of pain medication, according to a new study published June 2, 2016, in Drug and Alcohol Dependence.
This article examines gun-related suicide and violent crime rates in people with serious mental illnesses, and whether legal restrictions on firearm sales to people with a history of mental health adjudication effectively prevent gun violence.
This Knowledge Asset includes information about the impacts of bullying; the public health framework for anti-bullying laws; the language and content of these laws; and current evaluation studies on the implementation and effectiveness of anti-bullying laws.
Workplace injuries remain a significant public health problem. In the U.S. there were 4,383 fatal workplace injuries in 2012, and an estimated 3.8 million nonfatal injuries. Approximately 49,000 deaths each year are attributed to workplace-related illnesses. A 2011 economic analysis found that workplace injuries and illnesses cost the United States $192 billion annually.
New Jersey (NJ) implemented the first Graduated Driver Licensing (GDL) decal provision in the U.S. in May 2010. An initial study reported a 1-year post-decal decrease in the crash rate among NJ intermediate drivers aged <21 years. Longer-term analysis is critical for policymakers in other states considering whether to implement a decal provision. This study, published in the American Journal of Public Health, evaluates the longer-term (2-year) effect of NJ’s decal provision on overall and age-specific crash rates of young drivers with intermediate licenses.
A study released in the American Journal of Public Health finds that young men in New York City who report they’ve been stopped and questioned by police are also reporting higher levels of trauma and stress associated with those experiences, particularly when they report that the encounters were intrusive.
The Problem: Motorcycle crashes are a significant public health concern. In 2010, 4,502 drivers died in motorcycle crashes, and deaths related to such crashes increased 55% between 2000 and 2010, according to the CDC. The same report notes that the economic burden of motorcycle crashes was $12 billion in 2005. The public bears most of these costs through lost tax revenue, increased insurance premiums, and Medicaid spending.
