A new book edited by Public Health Law Research Director Scott Burris, JD and Associate Director and PHLR Methods Core Member Alexander Wagenaar, PhD, explores the mechanisms, theories and models central to public health law research.

Published by Jossey-Bass (a division of Wiley), the book features 17 chapters by the nation’s foremost public health law researchers. “Public Health Law Research: Theory and Methods” presents:

• Integrated theory drawn from numerous disciplines in the social and behavioral sciences.

• Specific mechanisms of legal effect, and from there, guidelines for collecting and coding empirical datasets of statutory and case law needed for scientific evaluation of laws’ effects on health.

• Optimal research designs for randomized trials and natural experiments for public health law evaluation, and methods for qualitative and cost-benefit studies of law.