Agenda Setting for Public Health Law: Identifying Critical Opportunities

Although legal interventions are responsible for many sentinel public health achievements, law is underutilized as a tool for advancing population health. Because of information gaps, industry opposition, failure to capture lawmakers’ attention, and other factors, there are legal interventions that could powerfully affect a broad range of health threats, yet are not widely disseminated or well implemented. Making more intelligent use of law requires a framework in which researchers and policymakers can think strategically, apply common criteria to set a policy agenda, and marshal evidence to identify the most promising avenues for action. This presentation will offer such a framework, the Critical Opportunities approach, and discuss its benefits as an evaluative tool. Key challenges, such as determining the level of evidence that is sufficient to justify moving forward with a new legal intervention, will be discussed. Finally, it will take on the broader normative question of when, and on what basis, legal regulation can be ethically and politically justified.