Legal epidemiology is the scientific study of law as a determinant of health — treating a statute the way an epidemiologist treats any other exposure. When a state changes a prescribing limit, mandates naloxone access, or alters telehealth payment parity, that is an intervention applied to a population, and its effect can be estimated.
I work with legal teams, regulators, policy organisations, and advocacy groups who need that estimate to be defensible — not a correlation dressed up as a finding.
Legal questions and epidemiologic questions are rarely phrased the same way. Most of the value in this work is in the translation: turning "did this law work" or "did this exposure cause this harm" into a question the data can actually answer, and being clear about what remains outside its reach.
Did the law do what it was meant to do? Staggered adoption across states is a natural experiment, and the methods for exploiting it are well established — when applied carefully.
General and specific causation rest on different evidence and are often conflated. I assess each on its own terms and state plainly where the evidence stops.
A senior read of an opposing analysis, a regulatory submission, or a study being relied on — written so it can be circulated internally and used.
Evidence assembled for bodies that must act on it — written for decision-makers rather than reviewers.
We separate what the law asks from what the data can answer, and agree what a defensible finding would look like.
Design, outcomes, and analysis are fixed in writing before analysis begins — the single strongest defence against a credibility challenge.
Estimation with sensitivity analyses and explicit treatment of the assumptions the result depends on.
A written product stating the finding, its uncertainty, and its limits — in language that survives cross-examination.
You don't need a formal brief to start. Describe the question in a few sentences and I'll tell you honestly whether the evidence can support what you need, and what it would take to find out.
If it isn't a fit, I'll say so directly — and where I can, point you to someone better placed. There's no obligation in asking.