| What is the relationship between health policy research and legislators in the formation of policy? While the current body of public health and to a lesser extent public policy literature focuses on transforming health research to justify policy decisions, there is relatively little work on whether or how research is used to formulate policy. Previous literature identifies decision making processes, barriers to convergence, and the role of agenda setting and framing as central to understanding this relationship. The overall goal of this research is to explore how research is translated into obesity health legislation. State-level obesity legislation from 2005-2007 will be examined to assess whether the causes of obesity based on research are integrated into policy. In addition, recent legislation from the period of 2005-2007 will be categorized using a rubric and a comparison of legislation across the states with the lowest and highest rates of changes in obesity over the time period is presented. Finally, differences between enacted and failed legislation are examined. |
