Evidence and policy making: love song or threnody?

Ethiopian Love Song

In 1972, as a “defrocked” debutante, I worked at a mission hospital in Haiti. It was a summer like no other: full of life, death, and love in unexpected guises. In short, the trip was transformative, drawing me to new worlds like a moth to a flame. Before long, I decided to study tropical medicine. A decade later—as an infectious diseases trainee—my Chief took me aside. “Can you speak with an a...

An Assessment of National Maternal and Child Health Policy-Makers’ Knowledge and Capacity for Evidence-Informed Policy-Making in Nigeria

Background There is increasing interest globally in the use of more rigorous processes to ensure that maternal, newborn, and child health (MNCH) care recommendations are informed by the best available research evidence use. The purpose of this study was to engage Nigerian MNCH policy-makers and other stakeholders to consider issues around research to policy and practice interface and to assess ...

Evidence based policy or policy based evidence?

From Evidence - Based Policy - Making to Policy

The paper aims at addressing the problem of what makes specific aiding to decide within public policy making problem situations. Under such a perspective it analyses some basic concepts such as “public policy”, “deliberation”, “legitimation”, “accountability” and shows the necessity to expand the concept of rationality which is expected to be behind the acceptability of a public policy. We then...

A Review of Evidence-Informed Policy Making in Sustainable Healthy Food and Nutrition Systems

Background and purpose: A safe food system provides the conditions for consumers to decide about and choose the food products. This systematic review describes the alternatives in order to achieve a healthy nutrition pattern in a food system that can be used to make changes in current policies. Materials and methods: An electronic literature search was done in Google Scholar, Web of Science, P...