Systematic Search Methods for Public Health Law Studies

Many types of public health law research, from mapping studies that describe the legal landscape across the states to controlled analyses of the effects of particular laws on health outcomes, involve the creation of a database of state laws. The quality and reproducibility of such research hinges on development and application of a rigorous, reliable methodology for finding and categorizing laws. However, strong search protocols remain the exception rather than the rule in the field. This session will present an approach for identifying state statutes and regulations that can be applied to a broad range of legal topics. It will discuss the challenges involved in creating public health law databases, best uses of available legal search engines to find statutes and regulations, methodologies for developing a categorization scheme for laws on a particular topic, strategies for converting categorization schemes into keyword searches, strategies for finding historical bill and regulation text, and advice for creating a scientific protocol to guide and reflect the search methodology. These issues will be illustrated through a practical example, a 50-state study of the effects of state laws aimed at curbing youth obesity. The session will also discuss the limitations of the methodology and how complementary methods, such as implementation studies and key informant interviews, can be used to overcome them.