BACKGROUND Discussions within the health community routinely emphasise the importance of evidence in informing policy formulation and implementation. Much of the support for the evidence-based policy movement draws from concern that policy decisions are often based on inadequate engagement with high-quality evidence. In many such discussions, evidence is treated as differing only in quality, an...

among the many reasons that may limit the adoption of promising reform ideas, policy capacity is the least recognized. the concept itself is not widely understood. although policy capacity is concerned with the gathering of information and the formulation of options for public action in the initial phases of policy consultation and development, it also touches on all stages of the policy proces...

background advocacy coalitions play an increasingly prominent role within the global health landscape, linking actors and institutions to attract political attention and resources. this paper examines how coalitions negotiate among themselves and exercise hidden forms of power to produce policy on the basis of their beliefs and strategic interests.   methods this paper examines the beliefs...

conclusions psychiatric, neurological, gastrointestinal, and respiratory diseases are the most frequent reasons of referring patients to iran. more accuracy in screening and care of patients are recommended before hajj in order to prevent references to iran and its complications. results a total of 106 cases were referred iran during hajj 2012. psychiatric problems, with 26.4% allocated the hig...

INTRODUCTION Public health policy-making activities are currently split between local authority and NHS organisations. Despite an increasing body of research on evidence-based policy (EBP), few studies explore the process of policy-making. Little is known about how policies are made in a local context, or how (scientific) evidence is used. Previous research has ignored the 'human element' in EB...

BACKGROUND Reflective practice is a desirable trait in physicians, yet there is little information about how it is taught to or learned by medical students. The purpose of this study was to determine whether an online Evidence Based Medicine (EBM) exercise with a face-to-face debriefing session would prompt third year medical students to reflect on their current skills and lead them to further ...

social health is important to be assessed as a dimension of health. the aim of study was to determine domains and sub-domains of individual social health of iranians.this study was carried out with a qualitative approach, using thematic content analysis. twenty five experts participated in interviews, using individual semi-structured interviews between november 2010 and june 2011.this data supp...

introduction: it has been found that the decision-making process in medicine is affected, to a large extent, by one’s experience, individual mentality, previous models, and common habitual approaches, in addition to scientific principles. evidence-based medicine is an approach attempting to reinforce scientific, systematic and critical thinking in physicians and provide the ground for optimal d...