What We're Learning

Supportive prenatal substance use policies that created/funded targeted substance use disorder treatment programs led to reductions in opioid overdoses and increases in the use of opioid use disorder medications for pregnant people.

Policies criminalizing maternal substance use or classifying it as child maltreatment are associated with an 18.9% increase in infant maltreatment reports, which may lead to a fear of experiencing child protective services involvement and reduced chances of reunificat

Supportive prenatal substance use policies are those in which pregnant people are provided access to treatment or other support programs. Such policies lead to better outcomes for babies: preterm births and low birth weight births both decreased by 2%.

This study evaluates multiple factors associated with Tobacco 21 (T21) policy adoption in the U.S. from 2015 to 2019 before the nationwide adoption of T21 to identify disparities between regions that adopted the policy and those that did not.

Smoke-free worksite laws lead to reductions in current smoking, increases in smoking cessation, and decreases in recent vaping. However, adding vaping restrictions to these laws may have actually reduced the impact of the law on current smoking among 18 to 25 year-olds.

County- and municipality-level policies restricting tobacco sales to individuals younger than 21, so-called Tobacco 21 or T21 laws, led to substantial reductions in smoking in 18- to 20-year olds.

Banning college affirmative action policies has important adverse spillover effects on health risk behaviors for underrepresented minority 11th and 12th graders, suggesting that social policies that increase socioeconomic opportunities could improve population health, wellbeing, and equity.