Health Foundation governor and BBC Education Editor, Branwen Jeffreys, chaired the proceedings, as the speakers made their pitches to a panel comprising Merle Davies, Director of the Centre for Early Child Development, Richard Horton, Editor of The Lancet, Ilona Kickbusch, Director of the Global Health Centre, and Ed Whiting, Director of Policy and Chief of Staff at the Wellcome Trust. Presentations were made in front of an expert audience in the room, with many more watching via a live weblink.

Professor Coggon explained law’s fundamental importance to public health efforts, emphasising how it provides a source of legitimacy, how it empowers and constrains, and how it contributes to defining the social conditions that in turn determine people’s capacity to enjoy good health.

He also examined how modes of reasoning in law—necessarily informed by understandings and influences from areas such as politics, economics, philosophy, and sociology—can seem distant from scientific evidence bases familiar within population health sciences, but nevertheless require to be understood if better, more effective policy is to be developed.

Sridhar Venkatapuram blogged about the event on the Health Foundation’s website, and Richard Horton published his reflections on it in The Lancet. The video of the event is available here, and written versions of each participant’s essay can be found here.

The X Factor for Evidence was both rigorous and enjoyable, contributing to ongoing activities in health research to move from evidence to action, including through recognition of the essential role of law, amongst other disciplines, in serving that goal.