Ways to Evaluate and Identify the Evidence Base for Health in All Policies

Law can be a powerful tool to drive population health improvements, but evaluation and evidence of effect is needed. While we can encourage a “health in all policies” approach to advancing health, we need to be sure that there is an evidence base associated with those policies. With the growth of the field of public health law, there are several new tools available to conduct evaluations in the context of academics as well as in practice. With new and emerging resources ranging from policy surveillance systems to compendiums of available empirical evidence, we need to conduct rigorous evaluations of laws and policies the same way that we would any other form of health intervention. It is equally important to build from existing data systems on behavior change, health outcomes and workforce performance, such as the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, the County Health Rankings and the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials state profiles. We will demonstrate examples of how researchers and practitioners can each use these various data to critically evaluate policies and laws being passed, including comparisons across jurisdictions looking for opportunities to pass new laws or amend existing laws. We will also address improved approaches to systematic evaluations of the law that consider behavior change, short and long-term health outcomes and the impact on performance by public health practitioners.