Research Results

This study analyzes the scope and content of existing national legislation in each of the Global Health Security Agenda Action Packages.

From 2013 to 2014, researchers conducted 47 semi-structured interviews with school and district administrators in Iowa about its 2007 anti-bullying law. Administrators identified many policy implementation challenges related to funding and staff, prevention programs, applying the law’s bullying definition in investigations, and understanding the school’s jurisdiction for policy enforcement. They also raised contextual barriers to implementation, like media portrayals of bullying and parental attitudes.

The authors describe Five Essential Public Health Law Services and suggest investment in the people, methods and tools needed to move major policy initiatives from conception to widespread implementation. The model reflects a transdisciplinary approach integrating public health legal practice with law-related surveillance, evaluation and enforcement functions usually performed by public health practitioners. As an elaboration of law-related activities within the Ten Essential Public Health Services, the framework can be used to define, evaluate and strengthen public health law functions.

Each week, the team from the Policies for Action Research Hub posts a summary of the latest news in housing equity and law. Visit the Harvard Petrie-Flom Center's Bill of Health Law to see all the weekly reviews.

Schools are often held responsible for preventing or addressing cyberbullying, yet little is known about school administrator perceptions of cyberbullying and the challenges they face in addressing this public health issue. This study examined school administrators’ perceptions of the facilitators of cyberbullying and barriers to primary and secondary prevention strategies.

This study examines what case characteristics in North Carolina increased the likelihood of a child maltreatment case being prosecuted, and upon prosecution, of being convicted.

Breastfeeding provides maternal and infant health benefits. Maternity care practices encompassed in the 10 Steps to Successful Breastfeeding are positively associated with improved breastfeeding outcomes. This study assessed changes in maternity care practices and lactation support.

This study reviewed changes to laws permitting ‘syringe exchanges’ and the provision of public funding for such programs, and finds that most of the changes in law occurred during the 1990s, five to 10 years later than in many other countries.

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.