This training provides a broad overview of the scientific methods used to create data from laws and policies. These methods, called scientific legal mapping or policy surveillance, create data suitable for use in rigorous evaluation studies and in practice. Policy surveillance addresses the chronic lack of readily accessible, nonpartisan information about status and trends in legislation and policy, it provides the opportunity to build policy capacity in the workforce, and it can speed the diffusion of innovation.

Attendees to this one-hour webinar hosted by the Center for Public Health Law Research at the Temple University Beasley School of Law will learn the differences between scientific legal mapping techniques (e.g., policy surveillance, legal assessments), the steps of the policy surveillance process, and uses for the data.