Policy surveillance for a global analysis of national abortion laws.

Policy surveillance offers a novel and important method for comparing law across jurisdictions. We used policy surveillance to examine abortion laws across the globe. Self-managed abortion, which generally takes place outside formal healthcare settings, is increasing in prevalence and can be safe. We analysed provisions that do not account for the prevalence of self-managed abortion and evidence of its safety. Such provisions require that abortion take place in a formal healthcare setting. We also analysed criminal penalties for non-compliance. Our method included development of a legal framework, an iterative process of refining coding schemes and procedures, and rigorous quality control. We limited our analysis to liberal abortion laws for two reasons. Abortion laws globally trend towards less restrictive. In addition, we aimed to focus on how laws relate to abortion outside a formal healthcare setting specifically and excluded laws that prohibit abortion more broadly. We found that in all countries with liberal national abortion laws, the law permits only healthcare professionals or trained health workers to perform legal abortion and the majority require the abortion to take place in a specified health facility. With policy surveillance methods we can illuminate characteristics of law across many jurisdictions and the need for widespread reform, toward laws that reflect scientific evidence and the way people have abortions.

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. This paper describes a method for Identifying Data for the Empirical Assessment of Law (IDEAL), to assess potential health effects of abortion regulations. The approach was applied to six critical legal interventions: mandatory waiting periods, third-party authorisation, gestational limits, criminalisation, provider restrictions and conscientious objection. The IDEAL process allowed researchers to link legal interventions and processes that have not been investigated fully in empirical research to processes and outcomes that have been more thoroughly studied. To the extent these links are both transparent and plausible, using IDEAL to make them explicit allows both researchers and policy stakeholders to make better informed assessments and guidance related to abortion law. The IDEAL method also identifies gaps in scientific research. Given the importance of law to public health generally, the utility of IDEAL is not limited to abortion law.

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. There are many laws aimed at maintaining healthy housing, or protecting access to stable housing, but their impacts are mostly unknown. POLICY: Using scientific legal mapping, the Center for Public Health Law Research (the Center) created legal data sets on state landlord-tenant laws, state fair housing laws, and city nuisance property ordinances. These data sets track the incidence and key features of these laws, creating legal data that can be used for evaluation. Some important elements of these laws include property maintenance duties; protections against retaliation; protected classes under state fair housing laws; discriminatory acts prohibited by state fair housing laws; types of conduct that constitute nuisance activity; and required nuisance abatement actions. IMPLEMENTATION AND/OR DISSEMINATION: As of August 1, 2017, all 50 states and the District of Columbia have a state landlord-tenant law; all states except Mississippi have a state fair housing law; and 37 of the 40 most populous US cities have a local nuisance property ordinance. EVALUATION: Evaluation of these laws is needed to determine their effectiveness and impacts and to spread the use of evidence-based policies. The creation of these legal data sets is the first step toward evaluation. DISCUSSION: Law can play an important role in promoting healthy housing, but evaluating the law is essential to determining its impact. Tracking the prevalence and key elements of laws is an important first step in conducting evaluation. The legal data created by the Center can be used to evaluate the efficacy and impacts of state landlord-tenant laws, state fair housing protections, and city nuisance property ordinances.