we argue that the field of health policy and management (hpam) ought to confront the gap between theory, policy, and practice. although there are perennial efforts to reform healthcare systems, the conceptual barriers are considerable and reflect the theory-policy-practice gap. we highlight four dimensions of the gap: 1) the dominance of microeconomic thinking in health policy analysis and desi...

Four points are made about globalization and health. First, economic integration is a powerful force for raising the incomes of poor countries. In the past 20 years several large developing countries have opened up to trade and investment, and they are growing well — faster than the rich countries. Second, there is no tendency for income inequality to increase in countries that open up. The hig...

The most important public health priority in agricultural policy-making is currently food safety, despite the relatively higher importance of food security, nutrition, and other agricultural-related health issues in terms of global burden of disease. There is limited experience worldwide of using health impact assessment (HIA) during the development of agriculture and food policies, which perha...

The purpose of containment is to prevent reintroduction of wild polioviruses from laboratories into polio-free communities. In order to achieve global commitment to laboratory containment the rationale should be clear and compelling; the biosafety levels should be justified by the risks; and the objectives should be realistic. Absolute containment can never be assured. Questions of intentional ...

while many international organisations have independent evaluations, including the international monetary fund (imf) and world health organization (who), uniquely the world bank in its 2015 world development report sought to ascertain the potential biases that influence how its staff interpret evidence and influence policy. here, we describe the world bank’s study design, including experiments ...

Family physicians have expressed a broad range of concerns regarding practice guidelines and other clinical policies. These concerns include (but are certainly not limited to) skepticism about the scientific accuracy of recommendations, uneasiness about infringement on autonomy in clinical care, and apprehension regarding potential adverse consequences if wrongly applied by third parties. I-4 B...