ReviewThe International journal on drug policy2017
Theory and methods in comparative drug and alcohol policy research: Response to a review of the literature.
Review in The International journal on drug policy, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed.
- Competing risks of AIDS and death in people living with HIV: a left-truncated and right-censored retrospective cohort study in Khuzestan, Iran (2001-2022).BMC infectious diseases · 2026Article
- A Call for Formal Reporting Standards for Legal Research in Public Health Studies.American journal of public health · 2025Article
- Global Legal Environment for LGBTQ+ Sexuality and Public Health.The Journal of law, medicine & ethics : a journal of the American Society of Law, Medicine & Ethics · 2025Article
- Global Policy Surveillance: Creating and Using Comparative National Data on Health Law and Policy.American journal of public health · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
1 author.
Funding
Abstract
Comparative drug and alcohol policy analysis (CPA) is alive and well, and the emergence of robust alternatives to strict prohibition provides exciting research opportunities. As a multidisciplinary practice, however, CPA faces several methodological challenges. This commentary builds on a recent review of CPA by Ritter et al. (2016) to argue that the practice is hampered by a hazy definition of policy that leads to confusion in the specification and measurement of the phenomena being studied. This problem is aided and abetted by the all-too-common omission of theory from the conceptualization and presentation of research. Drawing on experience from the field of public health law research, this commentary suggests a distinction between empirical and non-empirical CPA, a simple taxonomic model of CPA policy-making, mapping, implementation and evaluation studies, a narrower definition of and rationale for "policy" research, a clear standard for measuring policy, and an expedient approach (and renewed commitment) to using theory explicitly in a multi-disciplinary practice. Strengthening CPA is crucial for the practice to have the impact on policy that good research can.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.