Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Evidence shows that decisions made in sectors outside public health and health care—such as education, housing, and employment—can have profound and lasting effects on health and well-being. To help policymakers identify the potential and often-overlooked connections between proposed legislation in these various sectors and health, the Health Impact Project at The Pew Charitable Trusts developed a new approach called health notes. Health notes are brief, nonpartisan summaries that draw from the best available peer-reviewed research, scientific data, and public health expertise to describe the potential health implications of proposed legislation. The health notes draw upon the principles of health impact assessment and can be developed for several proposed policies within a short time frame, enabling their use during a legislative process.

This presentation will provide an overview of the methodology used to complete the health notes, including the development of a conceptual model that drives the research questions and keyword search, the systematic approach to an expedited literature review, the categorization of the strength of evidence, and the engagement of subject matter experts. The presentation will also describe the Health Impact Project’s experience piloting the health note approach with legislatures in Colorado and Indiana in the United States in 2018 and 2019, including the process of developing the notes, facilitators and challenges of implementation, and perceived impacts on the legislative process and policymaker understanding of the connections between various sectors and public health.