Homeless youth present significant challenges both to youth workers and policy-makers seeking to develop better prevention and intervention strategies. This article discusses the compelling need for researchers and policy-makers to make efforts to work collaboratively to develop improved social policy informed by research findings.

BACKGROUND In recognition of concerns that anthrax vaccination might be a trigger for "Gulf war syndrome", anthrax vaccinations were offered to UK armed forces in the 2003 Iraq conflict using explicit as opposed to implicit consent, as is the policy for all other vaccinations. This paper examines responses of personnel to this policy. METHODS Qualitative analysis of free text responses to a q...

This paper analyzes export subsidies (price incentives) and export quotas (quantity controls) in the Brander-Spencer (1985) model when policy makers have limited information on demand and cost structures. We examine necessary or sufficient information for policy makers to determine the right policies. It is crucial that they know the elasticity values of the slope of the inverse demand curve an...

Incorporating evidence is fundamental to maintaining the general acceptance and efficiency in public policies. In Pakistan, different actors-local and global-strive to facilitate the development of evidence-informed health policies. Effective involvement however, requires knowledge of the country-context, i.e. knowing the intricacies of how policies are formulated in Pakistan. Obtaining this kn...

Since 2010, the United States has witnessed a dramatic expansion of state-based restrictions on abortion. The most common of these are informed consent statutes, which require that a woman seeking an abortion receive a state-authored informational packet before the abortion procedure can be performed. These laws, in addition to requiring the provision of information about alternatives to and ri...

Feedback into the broader policy debate in macroeconomic and related structural areas remains limited. However, when a more informed debate and broadening of the policy space did take place on these issues, the policy outcome was generally positive. In contrast, when controversial issues involving difficult trade-offs were avoided during the PRS process, the consequences for “downstream” polici...

Health Research and Policy Systems (HARPS) has gone from strength to strength since it was established in 2003. As new Editors-in-Chief, we look forward to a bright future for HARPS, and we would like to start a conversation with you, HARPS readers, authors, editors and others, about how HARPS can best support ongoing progress and debate on evidence-informed health research policy and systems, ...

The issue explored here is an example of the interface between social research and social policy in the United States. The aging policy debate concerning the economic status of the elderly has tended to focus upon the disadvantaged; it is informed by a relatively selective view of the financial resources of older persons. The result has been policy that is vulnerable to the market attention giv...

Political realities and institutional structures are often ignored when gathering evidence to influence population health policies. If these policies are to be successful, social science literature on policy change should be integrated into the population health approach. In this contribution, drawing on the work of John W. Kingdon and related scholarship, we set out to examine how key componen...