18 Months

The study will examine the relationship between state laws that preempt local tobacco control policies (i.e. local regulation of smoking in workplaces and public places, youth access to tobacco products, and tobacco advertising) and population health behaviors and outcomes (i.e. adult and youth tobacco initiation, use, and cessation rates, lung cancer rates and other chronic diseases associated with tobacco use). The research findings will also have practical application beyond tobacco control, as preemption has been used to block local obesity prevention interventions. Deliverables will include a toolkit of materials that can be used by public health professionals seeking to eliminate or prevent preemption in their states.

This study will measure whether quantity restrictions, electronic tracking, or a doctor’s prescription requirement for purchases of pseudoephedrine reduce the public health costs of methamphetamine production and use. The project is significant because it is the only one to measure the national effectiveness and cost effectiveness of the leading proposed policies for limiting domestic methamphetamine production: limiting the quantity of purchases, requiring a prescription, and electronic tracking. This research will also weigh the potential public health benefits of reducing the supply of methamphetamine against the potential loss of profits and consumer welfare caused by reduced access to effective cold medicine.

This study will analyze the impact of restorative justice on offender health, using a unique dataset from a randomized control trial of restorative justice (RJ) practices in Australia.  Recent analyses of these data suggest that this use of RJ produced a very sharp reduction in offender mortality over many years. "Restorative justice" remains one of the few evidence-based alternatives to punitive criminal justice approaches to crime.  Bringing offenders and victims together in a process of "reintegrative shaming" has been shown in studies in many countries to reduce recidivism and the toll of victimization. Reductions were particularly concentrated among the young violent offenders who had committed the most serious crimes.

The original study included a randomized field experiment; observations of legal proceedings; multi-wave, face-to-face interviews with offenders and their victims; and official data from government sources. Because these findings stem from a well-implemented randomized trial, the direct causal link between RJ and reduced mortality is exceptionally clear. We now know that using RJ in response to violent crime can save the lives of the offenders who are exposed to it. What we don't know is why this effect occurred, and what aspects of RJ conferences were most important to causing it. Answering these questions could lead to innovations here in the US in criminal procedure and reduce deaths in the exceptionally vulnerable population of criminal offenders. The US has had a long experimentation phase with restorative justice practices, including diversion programs, specialty courts, ceasefire initiatives and others. Demonstrating a positive health impact would add to the policy impetus for effective, therapeutic criminal justice reforms.

The investigators are leading American criminologists, including investigators in the original Australian study.

This study will assess the implementation of Iowa’s anti-bullying legislation and the effects on student-reported bullying victimization. The team will 1) identify the processes by which Iowa middle schools have carried out provisions and complied with recent state anti-bullying legislation; (2) assess the impact of Iowa’s anti-bullying legislation on rates of bullying victimization in Iowa middle schools; and (3) discern how compliance has modified the effect of the law. Beginning with a qualitative multiple case study approach with 4 purposely selected Iowa middle schools, data will be collected from school and district administrators responsible for anti-bullying policies and procedures. Second, those findings will be used to construct a tool to measure level of compliance to the state law, and carry out a statewide survey with all middle school principals. Administrator compliance data will then be linked with Iowa Youth Survey data to determine if compliance modifies the effect of the law.