The recent perspective article “How Neoliberalism Is Shaping the Supply of Unhealthy Commodities and What This Means for NCD Prevention,” by Lencucha and Throw, interrogates how the dominant neoliberal paradigm restricts meaningful policy action to prevent non-communicable diseases (NCDs). It contributes an NCD perspective to the existing literature on neoliberalism and...

This special issue of the Journal is devoted to understanding the many roads that lead toward achieving health equity. The eleven articles in the issue portray an America that is struggling with the clash between its historical ideal of pursuing equality for all and its ambivalence toward achieving equity in all social domains, especially health. Organized in five sections, the issue contains a...

OBJECTIVE This paper traces the background of involvement and increasing external activity of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (RANZCP) in the policy and project area. CONCLUSIONS Throughout 2008, representatives of the RANZCP paused to review progress and celebrate successes in the implementation of the College's stated aim to develop an externally focussed polic...

the focus on public policy and health equity is discussed in reference to the current global health policy discussion on universal health coverage (uhc). this initiative has strong commitment from the leadership of the international organizations involved, but a lack of policy clarity outside of the health financing component may limit the initiative’s impact on health inequity. in order to add...

This article aims to discuss the concepts of Social Determination of Health and Social Determinants of Health, by establishing a comparison between each of their guiding perspectives and investigating their implications on the development of health policies and health actions. We propose a historical and conceptual reflection, highlighting the Theory on the Social Production of Health, followed...

Link and Phelan (1995) developed the theory of fundamental causes to explain why the association between socioeconomic status (SES) and mortality has persisted despite radical changes in the diseases and risk factors that are presumed to explain it. They proposed that the enduring association results because SES embodies an array of resources, such as money, knowledge, prestige, power, and bene...

BACKGROUND The importance of assessing research impact is increasingly recognised. Ghana has a long tradition of research dating from the 1970s. In the Ghana Health Service there are three health research centres under the Research and Development Division. Dodowa Health Research Centre (DHRC) is the youngest in the country dating from the 1990s. The objective of this study is to analyse the in...

Policy analysis can contribute to meeting health objectives by untangling the complex forces of power and process that underpin change. Health policy analysis has not been adequately developed and applied in low and middle income countries. Building a critical mass of networked researchers and policy-makers provides the key to developing the field and improving its contribution to health outcomes.

In their editorial, Speed and Mannion identify two main challenges "the rise of post-truth populism" poses for health policy: the populist threat to inclusive healthcare policies, and the populist threat to well-designed health policies that draw on professional expertise and research evidence. This short comment suggests some conceptual clarifications that might help in thinking through more p...

In the last few years, increasing attention has been paid to the development of health policies. But side by side with the presumed benefits of policy, many analysts share the opinion that a major drawback of health policies is their failure to make room for issues of human resources. Current approaches in human resources suggest a number of weaknesses: a reactive, ad hoc attitude towards probl...