Radon's Deadly Daughters: Science, Environ-mental Policy, and the Politics of Risk.

The Paradox of Health Policy: Revealing the True Colours of This ‘Chameleon Concept’; Comment on “The Politics and Analytics of Health Policy”

Health policy has been termed a ‘chameleon concept’, referring to its ability to take on different forms of disciplinarity as well as different roles and functions. This paper extends Paton’s analysis by exploring the paradox of health policy as a field of academic inquiry—sitting across many of the boundaries of social science but also marginalised by them. It situates contemporary approaches ...

The Politics and Analytics of Health Policy

Let us start with an example of health policy analysis in action. Within that category of countries loosely known as ‘the West’, quite basic differences exist in attitudes to health policy and also actual health policy. Comparing the US with mainland Europe and indeed Canada, for example, one perceives a difference in attitude on the part of the majority towards collectivism and individualism i...

Advancing Global Health – The Need for (Better) Social Science; Comment on “Navigating Between Stealth Advocacy and Unconscious Dogmatism: The Challenge of Researching the Norms, Politics and Power of Global Health”

In his perspective “Navigating between stealth advocacy and unconscious dogmatism: the challenge of researching the norms, politics and power of global health,” Ooms argues that actions taken in the field of global health are dependent not only on available resources, but on the normative premise that guides how these resources are spent. This comment sets out how the application of a predomina...

A Spanner in the Works? Anti-Politics in Global Health Policy; Comment on “A Ghost in the Machine? Politics in Global Health Policy”

The formulation of global health policy is political; and all institutions operating in the global health landscape are political. This is because policies and institutions inevitably represent certain values, reflect particular ideologies, and preferentially serve some interests over others. This may be expressed explicitly and consciously; or implicitly and unconsciously. But it’s important t...

Ingredients for Good Health Policy-Making: Incorporating Power and Politics into the Mix