Issue link: https://blog.providence.org/i/1035653
Evaluating State Mental Health and Addiction Parity Statutes: A Technical Report 7 The Statutory Coding Instrument L egal epidemiology is the scientific study of law as a factor in the cause, distribution, and prevention of disease and injury. 7 This is an emerging field that blends the practice of developing and implementing health laws with the scientific evaluation of how laws can affect health. Understanding how state parity laws impact important public health outcomes (such as access to mental health care or suicide prevalence) first requires the use of rigorous methods to measure the characteristics and prevalence of laws of interest. 8 The Kennedy-Satcher Center for Mental Health Equity in the Satcher Health Leadership Institute at Morehouse School of Medicine (KSCMHE) and The Kennedy Forum formed a multidisciplinary research team to develop the Statutory Coding Instrument (SCI). The SCI assesses state-level mental health parity statutes (written laws that were passed by state legislatures and signed by the governor) using systematic methods. A systematic evaluation of state administrative codes, other sources of law, and agency activities such as state enforcement activities and Medicaid requires a separate coding methodology, thus is beyond the scope of this report. The research was conducted in two Phases. In Phase I, a panel of experts was convened by a research team associated with The Kennedy Forum to consider and assign value to the practical impact of specific legal provisions. These subject matter experts included individuals from leading national advocacy organizations, academic institutions, state insurance regulators, and the insurance industry to review and comment on the coding criteria. This panel informed the development of 10 questions that were used to code the state statutes. To ensure broad consensus, the questions were also reviewed by The Kennedy-Satcher Center for Mental Health Equity at Morehouse School of Medicine National Advisory Board and the Parity Leadership Workgroup, a coalition of organizations actively engaged in state and national parity implementation efforts. The research team incorporated feedback to improve the ability to apply a coding methodology that could be replicated. Table 1 lists the SCI item questions. The full instrument with rationale for point allocations is included in Appendix B. ________________ 7 Burris, S., Ashe, M., Levin, D., Penn, M., & Larkin, M. (2016). A Transdisciplinary Approach to Public Health Law: The Emerging Practice of Legal Epidemiology, Ann. Rev. Pub. Health, 37,135. 8 Presley D., Reinstein, T., & Burris, S. (2015, Feb.). Technical Standards for Policy Surveillance and Legal Datasets: Report of a Delphi Process. In Resources for Policy Surveillance. Retrieved from http://publichealthlawresearch.org/sites/default/files/uploaded_ images/CombinedYear1Report_Feb2015.pdf.