The Legal Epidemiology Learning Cohort: Reflections and Spotlights After a Decade of Practice-Based Legal Epidemiology Training.

For years, in response to demand from the field, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Office of Public Health Law Services (OPHLS) has partnered with outside organizations, including Temple University's Center for Public Health Law Research and ChangeLab Solutions, to operate the Legal Epidemiology Learning Cohort (Learning Cohort). This year-long opportunity offers training and mentorship to health department practitioners and others from public health-adjacent settings on the practical steps of legal epidemiology, which includes collecting, mapping, and evaluating legal texts. Participants work in transdisciplinary teams to design and carry out the foundational work for completing projects on research questions relevant to local public health challenges. Throughout 2023, ChangeLab Solutions and OPHLS coordinated training sessions and provided technical assistance to seven Learning Cohort teams across the country. This paper provides an overview of the Learning Cohort's background, approach, and lessons learned. It also spotlights three recent Learning Cohort teams who describe the projects they completed and the benefits and challenges they found in learning foundational legal epidemiology methods for their public health work. Featured projects demonstrate how legal epidemiology can be used to examine topics like water safety, Tribal access to public health data, and the intersection of state and local law.