Drug Abuse Policy Surveillance System



 DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Laws, regulations and policies play a significant role in prevention and treatment of drug abuse. They also have unintended impacts on drug users' behavior and the risk environments they inhabit. Scientifically valid legal data is the starting point for the evaluation of the health impact of laws, policies and their implementation. This project will use scientifically sound, transparent methods to collect code and publish laws, regulations and other formalized policies relevant to prescription drug abuse in a state-of-the-art interactive, web-based Drug Abuse Policy Surveillance System. Coding will encompass key variables of interest for each legal text, and will be accomplished using a content management system designed specifically for efficiently and accurately coding, publishing and updating legal data in longitudinal datasets. Data, accompanied by code books and detailed research/coding protocols will be available for download to and compatible with commonly used statistical software. All data will also be publically accessible in multiple formats (maps, tables, term-searchable database) on a fully interactive website. LSP's Monocle content management system includes a unique software platform for coding laws, regulations and policies ("The Workbench), which it an then publish through an API to custom websites, apps and data systems. The applicants have successfully built and populated LawAtlas, a public policy surveillance web portal, and a Prescription Drug Abuse Policy System (PDAPS) for NIDA, which will be launched early in 2015. The project's approach and software tools have a high potential for commercial application in other policy areas and market sectors. LSP's Monocle platform is currently commercialized for use by researchers, non-governmental organizations, corporations and state and county health departments to create health policy data for monitoring, evaluation, strategic planning and community engagement. Significant further commercial potential exists in other sectors (transportation, legal, energy, environmental, international development) to research, analyze, monitor, evaluate and/or visualize data regarding statutes, regulations and/or administrative rules on any topic.