Health reform is the outcome of dispersed policy initiatives in different sectors, at different levels and across time. Policy work which can drive coherent health reform needs to operate across the governance structures as well as the institutions that comprise healthcare systems. Building policy capacity to support health reform calls for clarity regarding the nature of such policy work and t...

BACKGROUND Public health is to a large extent determined by non-health-sector policies. One approach to address this apparent paradox is to establish healthy public policies. This requires policy makers in non-health sectors to become more aware of the health impacts of their policies, and more willing to adopt evidence-informed policy measures to improve health. We employed a knowledge broker ...

BACKGROUND The ultimate goal of knowledge translation and exchange (KTE) activities is to facilitate incorporation of research knowledge into program and policy development decision making. Evidence-informed decision making involves translation of the best available evidence from a systematically collected, appraised, and analyzed body of knowledge. Knowledge management (KM) is emerging as a ke...

BACKGROUND Minimum unit pricing of alcohol is a novel public health policy with the potential to improve population health and reduce health inequalities. Theories of the policy process may help to understand the development of policy innovation and in turn identify lessons for future public health research and practice. This study aims to explain minimum unit pricing's development by taking a ...

This article examines the implicit promises of fairness in evidence based medicine (EBM), namely to avoid discrimination through objective processes, and to distribute effective treatments fairly. The relationship between EBM and vulnerable groups (such as those disadvantaged by virtue of poverty, ethnicity, age, gender, mental health problems or similar) is examined. Several aspects of EBM are...

Information and communication technology (ICT) tools are known to facilitate communication and processing of information and sharing of knowledge by electronic means. In Nigeria, the lack of adequate capacity on the use of ICT by health sector policymakers constitutes a major impediment to the uptake of research evidence into the policymaking process. The objective of this study was to improve ...