Public health law research and injury control

Public health law has become a major tool of intervention to reduce morbidity and mortality due to injury and other causes. Public health law research has not been supported to a degree commensurate with the impact of law as an intervention tool. An overview of Robert Wood Johnson Foundation initiatives to support public health law and research. The Foundation has supported a coordinated set of initiatives to improve the identification, adoption and implementation of effective legal responses to public health threats. The first program in the initiative was the Public Health Law Research Program, started in 2009. It was joined a year later by the Network for Public Health Law, which provides technical assistance to health agencies and others using law to advance health goals. More recent elements of the program include fellowship programs for lawyers working on attorney general staffs, health law professors, and health department policy teams. These initiatives are helping increase acceptance and use of law as a public health tool.