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Webinar:
Law as data: Coding legal text using Public Health Law Research’s LawAtlas
April 4, 2013
1:00 PM – 2:00 PM EDT
Register
The National Program Office for Public Health Law Research launched LawAtlas.org in October 2012. LawAtlas is a website designed to facilitate the construction and display of quantitative legal datasets, enabling researchers to create custom web pages that allow users to interact with data and the associated legal texts through queries and maps. LawAtlas.org includes a web-based content management system called Workbench. This system was developed to provide a platform for accurately and efficiently compiling legal texts and coding their mechanistic features.
We believe the Workbench design increases the accuracy and efficiency of legal measurement projects. It allows researchers to automate the creation of databases for organizing legal texts and coding for measuring features of associated laws.
This webinar will look at two unique datasets constructed using the LawAtlas Workbench system, and will demonstrate the complexity and value of systematically collecting and coding statutes, regulations and case law. Sarah Happy, JD will present “Wages and Health,” a dataset of state and federal minimum wage laws from a 30-year period that examines the role of minimum wage rates as a social determinant of health. Steve Latham, JD, PhD will share “Criminalization of HIV Transmission and Exposure,” a dataset that compiles data from HIV/AIDS-specific criminal statutes and reported cases that use the defendant’s HIV status as an element of crime as a reason to elevate or enhance a charge or as a factor in justifying enhanced sentencing.
Introduction:
Joan Naymark, JG Naymark Demographics
Moderator:
Damika Webb, JD, Legal Analyst and LawAtlas Manager, Public Health Law Research
Presenters:
Sarah Happy, JD, Legal Analyst, Public Health Law Research
Steve Latham, JD, PhD, Director of the Yale Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics
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Administration Issues Open Access Policy Statement
On February 22, John Holdren, Presidential Science Adviser and Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, issued the Administration’s new policy on Open Access to publications containing the results of federally-funded research. The policy directs those Federal agencies with more than $100 million in research and development expenditures to develop plans to make the results of federally-funded research publically available free of charge within 12 months after original publication. Acknowledging that this model has been working at the National Institutes of Health, Holdren indicated that the new policy “does not insist that every agency copy the NIH approach exactly.”
The full White House memo is here.
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Census Bureau Makes New Congressional Districts and Three Decades of Decennial Data Available in API
Three decades worth of statistics about America’s people, places and economy are now available for use on the U.S. Census Bureau’s application programming interface, which makes the information available for Web and mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets. In addition, 2011 American Community Survey estimates for the new districts formed for the 113th Congress are also now available in the API. Read more here.
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Department of Agriculture Issues Report on the Definition of “Rural”
The impetus for Rural Development (RD) programs is that equivalent National programs and private investors and lenders shut out rural areas due to lack of capacity and the need for highest returns. To address the unmet needs of rural America, Congress authorized and targeted funds to rural areas by limiting eligibility based on total population. As population and economies continue to shift within and between states, eligibility criteria based on total population warrant a second look. Read more here.
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KIDS COUNT Data Snapshot: Youth Incarceration in the United States
In this KIDS COUNT data snapshot, the Casey Foundation finds that the rate of young people locked up because they were in trouble with the law dropped more than 40 percent over a 15-year period, with no decrease in public safety. The snapshot indicates that the number of young people in correctional facilities on a single day fell to 70,792 in 2010, from a high of 107,637 in 1995. The publication also recommends ways to continue reducing reliance on incarceration and improve the odds for young people involved in the juvenile justice system. Read more here.
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TIGERweb v3.0 Now Available
The TIGERweb viewer and streaming map services have been updated with new boundaries and features from the 2013 Boundary and Annexation Survey (BAS13) benchmark, which include updates as of August 2012 with boundary annexation data effective as of January 1, 2012. See more here.
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O*NET Tools and Technology Database Updated
The tools and technology (T2) file provides information on machines, equipment, tools, and software that workers may use for optimal functioning in a high performance workplace. With this update, over 47,000 tools and technologies have now been identified for 670 occupations, including all 200+ O*NET Green occupations and over 80% of the Bright Outlook occupations. Read more here.
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TIGER/Line Geodatabases with American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates Data Profiles – 2010 & 2011
TIGER/Line Geodatabases with pre-joined 2006-2010 and 2007-2011 American Community Survey (ACS) 5-year estimates data profiles are now available for select state and national level geographies. Geodatabases are available for counties, metropolitan and micropolitan related statistical areas, and census tracts. The 2010 and 2011 TIGER/Line Geodatabases with pre-joined ACS 5-year estimates are available for download here.
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How Data Can Improve Afterschool Programs for At-Risk Youth
The promise of data is huge, but putting it to good use can be a challenge. That’s what local officials and community volunteers, aiming to create effective afterschool programs for at-risk students, have found as they try to harness and share all the information that’s available to them. It starts with collecting the right kind of data. Read more here.
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Notable Data Publications
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Each week, the APDU Data Update identifies recent statistical data releases of interest to APDU members.
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Did you work on a great report that you want your colleagues to know about? Just email us and we’ll include it here.
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APDU maintains a list of open calls for comment on proposed federal data collections. We periodically alert APDU members to newly added calls for comment. Over the last several weeks, calls for comment on the following proposed data collections were published in the Federal Register (with due date):
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Administration for Children and Families
- Annual Survey of Refugees (April 25, 2013)
Bureau of Justice Statistics
- 2012 Census of Law Enforcement Training Academies (April 29, 2013)
Census Bureau
- Survey of Income and Program Participation 2014 Panel (April 23, 2013)
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
- Prevalence Survey of Healthcare-Associated Infections in Acute Care Hospitals in the United States (March 27, 2013)
- School Associated Violent Death Surveillance System (March 14, 2013)
Energy Information Administration
- Natural Gas Imports and Exports (April 29, 2013)
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