Content
Discussion - Part 2
Policy
Development
Healthy public
policy encompasses legislation, taxation, fiscal measures and organizational
change initiatives. Healthy public policies promote the health of
individuals and communities by:
 making
it easier for people to adopt healthy practices;
making it harder for
people to adopt unhealthy practices; and
creating healthy physical
and social environments (Nutbeam, 1998).
The balance
of this section will review the four steps involved in policy development:
Analyzing
the Problem
Identifying Stakeholders
Describing Effective
Policies
Evaluating Policy
Analyzing
the Problem
The development
of any health-related policy begins with an analysis of the health
issue or problem the policy is designed to address. The questions
in Checklist 5.4 provide a helpful framework for analyzing a health
issue.
|
|
 |
| 5.4:
Framework for Analyzing a Health Issue |
Ideally, by
the end of this analysis, the problem or issue requiring a policy
should be described in one sentence. If this cannot be done, then
further work may be required; otherwise, it may be difficult to
convey the nature of the problem to the decision makers responsible
for implementing policy.
|
