Ibrahim Jennifer K, Sorensen Aaron A, Grunwald Heidi, Burris Scott
Center for Public Health Law Research, Temple University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (Drs Ibrahim and Grunwald, and Mr Burris); and UberResearch, Cambridge, Massachusetts (Mr Sorensen).
J Public Health Manag Pract. 2017 Nov/Dec;23(6):658-666. doi: 10.1097/PHH.0000000000000598.
Law powerfully influences health and can be a critical tool for promoting population well-being. Evaluation research is needed to measure the health effects of law and guide policy making and implementation. The purpose of this study was to assess trends in National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding for scientific public health law research (PHLR).
Using data from the UberResearch NIH grant repository, we collected and coded all grants with a focus on health law between FY'85 and FY'14 and then analyzed the grants by funding agency and topic areas.
Between FY'85 and FY'14, NIH funded 510 research grants on health policy making, the health effects of laws or enforcement practices. On average, 4 PHLR grants were funded annually with a median total funding of $545 956 (range: $2535-$44 052 300) and a median annual funding of $205 223 (range: $2535-$7 019 517).
National Institutes of Health has supported important PHLR but not nearly to the extent necessary to ensure that public health laws affecting the population are evaluated in a rigorous and timely manner. In addition to greater funding evaluation research, NIH can increase its support for creating legal datasets, fund training in PHLR, and work with the National Library of Medicine to create Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) terms related to PHLR.
法律对健康有着强大的影响，并且可以成为促进民众福祉的关键工具。需要开展评估研究来衡量法律对健康的影响，并指导政策制定与实施。本研究的目的是评估美国国立卫生研究院（NIH）对科学公共卫生法律研究（PHLR）的资助趋势。
利用来自UberResearch NIH资助库的数据，我们收集并编码了1985财年至2014财年期间所有以卫生法为重点的资助项目，然后按资助机构和主题领域对这些资助项目进行了分析。
在1985财年至2014财年期间，NIH资助了510项关于卫生政策制定、法律的健康影响或执法实践的研究资助项目。平均每年资助4项PHLR项目，资助总额中位数为545,956美元（范围：2535美元至44,052,300美元），年度资助中位数为205,223美元（范围：2535美元至7,019,517美元）。
美国国立卫生研究院支持了重要的PHLR项目，但远远未达到确保对影响民众的公共卫生法律进行严格及时评估所需的程度。除了增加对评估研究的资助外，NIH还可以加大对创建法律数据集的支持力度，资助PHLR方面的培训，并与国立医学图书馆合作创建与PHLR相关的医学主题词（MeSH）术语。
