Perspectives In the last 15 years there has been considerable growth in the amount of – and funding for – health policy and systems research. 1 However, research addressing health policy decision-making, across all stages of the policy process, has been relatively neglected. 2 Here we argue for an increased emphasis on policy in health systems research. We focus specifically on low-and middle-i...

Many prominent health experts now assert that major improvements in the health of the American people must come from individual efforts to alter unhealthy personal habits and lifestyles rather than through medical services and technology. But it does not necessarily follow that a more ethical and feasible national health policy would focus primarily on exhorting Americans to mobilize their indi...

Public policy activities to promote healthy diets have been criticised for their lack of success. Applying a marketing approach to non-commercial policy objectives such as healthy eating, termed social marketing, is an emerging but as yet underdeveloped field. An earlier study conducted a case analysis of recent successful commercial food marketing and identified key success factors that may be...

The decision-making process to introduce new vaccines into national immunization programmes is often complex, involving many stakeholders who provide technical information, mobilize finance, implement programmes and garner political support. Stakeholders may have different levels of interest, knowledge and motivations to introduce new vaccines. Lack of consensus on the priority, public health v...

This qualitative study assessed clients' participation in organizational decision making in a public long-term psychiatric hospital. Numerous examples were found in which clients meaningfully participated in the decision-making process and achieved favorable policy changes. Three means of involving clients were found to be especially useful: (1) using a consumer council, (2) involving clients i...

BACKGROUND In order to better understand factors that influence decisions for public health, we undertook a qualitative study to explore issues relating to the time horizons used in decision-making. METHODS Qualitative study using semi-structured interviews. 33 individuals involved in the decision making process around coronary heart disease were purposively sampled from the UK National Healt...

This paper presents a novel conceptualization of policy making as social drama. The selection and presentation of evidence for policy making, including the choice of which questions to ask, which evidence to compile in a synthesis and which syntheses to bring to the policy making table, should be considered as moves in a rhetorical argumentation game and not as the harvesting of objective facts...

Background: Stewardship, resource generation, financing, and providing services are the 4 main functions in any health system. Using intelligence and common sense in making policies and decisions is a subcomponent of the stewardship. The present study aimed at designing a model that provides better access to the stakeholders’ wisdom.    Methods: This was a qualitative study in ...

1. Benzeval M, Judge K, Whitehead M. Tackling inequalities in health. An agenda for action. London: King’s Fund; 1995. 2. Ben-Shlomo Y, Marmot M. Policy options for managing health inequalities in industrial and post-industrial countries. En: Strickland SS, Shetty PS, editors. Human biology and social inequality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; 1998. p. 308-30. 3. Acheson D, Barker D, Ch...