In April 2000, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) and the Institute of Medicine (IOM) hosted an expert meeting, "Evidence: Its Meanings and Uses in Law, Medicine and Health Care," to explore the differences in how scientists, clinical practitioners, judges, legal scholars, and juries interpret and use evidence. Participants included attorneys, judges, legal researchers, policymakers, physicians, and health services researchers.
As the participants in the workshop came to realize, the concept and attributes of "evidence" depends on where one sits. Although time-honored legal and medical science interpretations of "evidence" were recognized, it was also acknowledged that the legal system and the health care system would each benefit from sustained efforts of mutual education of practitioners from both fields.
A Special Issue of the Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law, entitled Evidence: Its Meanings in Health Care and in Law, was dedicated to thoughtful and provocative discussions of how "evidence" is defined and used in medicine and the law. The issue answers such questions as: How are courts dealing with clinical practice guidelines? How can the courts' use of medical evidence improve health care? How do privacy concerns fit into the evidence debate?
Electronic versions of the articles are provided in two formats: HTML documents and PDF Files. Select for PDF Help. Also note Copyright Constraints on all materials provided.
Editor's Note (PDF File: 16 KB)
Mark A. Peterson
Evidence: Its Meanings in Health Care and in Law, Workshop Summary (PDF File: 75 KB)
Clark C. Havighurst, Peter Barton Hutt, Barbara J. McNeil, and Wilhelmine Miller
An Epistemologist in the Bramble-Bush: At the Supreme Court with Mr. Joiner (PDF File: 121 KB)
Susan Haack
Proof and Policy from Medical Research Evidence (PDF File: 630 KB)
Cynthia D. Mulrow and Kathleen N. Lohr
Expertise in Law, Medicine, and Health Care (PDF File: 93 KB)
Daniel W. Shuman
Cost-Effectiveness Analysis in the Courts: Recent Trends and Future Prospects (PDF File: 132 KB)
Peter D. Jacobson and Matthew L. Kanna
Evidence-Based Medicine and the Law: The Courts Confront Clinical Practice Guidelines
(PDF File: 148 KB)
Arnold J. Rosoff
What Does Evidence Mean? Can the Law and Medicine Be Reconciled? (PDF File: 51 KB)
John M. Eisenberg
Commentary—Cost-Effectiveness Analyses: Making a Pseudoscience Legitimate (PDF File: 21 KB)
Drummond Rennie
Commentary—The Use of Evidence and Cost Effectiveness by the Courts: How Can It Help Improve Health Care? (PDF File: 78 KB)
David M. Eddy
Commentary—From the Clinics to the Courts: The Role Evidence Should Play in Litigating Medical Care (PDF File: 76 KB)
E. Haavi Morreim
Commentary—Demystifying the Law/Science Disconnect (PDF File: 42 KB)
Michelle M. Mello and Troyen A. Brennan
Commentary—The Politics of Evidence-Based Medicine (PDF File: 32 KB)
Marc A. Rodwin
Exchange of Views
Too Much Privacy? Or Not Enough? An Exchange on The Limits of Privacy (PDF File: 30 KB)
James A. Morone
Response to Professor James A. Morone (PDF File: 16 KB)
Amitai Etzioni
Books
Review Essay: Genetic Testing is Different (PDF File: 71 KB)
Ellen Wright Clayton
Genetic Testing for Alzheimer Disease: Ethical and Clinical Issues, by Stephen G. Post and Peter J. Whitehouse, eds.; Promoting Safe and Effective Genetic Testing in the United States: Principles and Recommendations, by the Task Force on Genetic Testing, NIH-DOE Working Group on Ethical, Legal, and Social Implications of Human Genome Research
Internet Citation:
Evidence: Its Meanings in Health Care and in Law. Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law, 26:2, April 2001. Copyright 2001, Duke University Press. All rights reserved; posted with permission. For information on the journal or to order a hard copy, go to http://www.dukeupress.edu/jhppl/
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