Policy capacity focuses on the managerial and organizational abilities to inform policy decisions with sound research and analysis, and facilitate policy implementation with operational efficiency. It stems from a view of the policy process that is rational and positivistic, in which optimal policy choices can be identified, selected, and implemented with objectivity. By itself, however, policy...

Forest and colleagues have persuasively made the case that policy capacity is a fundamental prerequisite to health reform. They offer a comprehensive life-cycle definition of policy capacity and stress that it involves much more than problem identification and option development. I would like to offer a Canadian perspective. If we define health reform as re-orienting the health system from acut...

background the lack of effective use of research evidence in policy-making is a major challenge in most low- and middle-income countries (lmics). there is need to package research data into effective policy tools that will help policy-makers to make evidence-informed policy regarding infectious diseases of poverty (idp). the objective of this study was to assess the usefulness of training works...

Background The lack of effective use of research evidence in policy-making is a major challenge in most low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). There is need to package research data into effective policy tools that will help policy-makers to make evidence-informed policy regarding infectious diseases of poverty (IDP). The objective of this study was to assess the usefulness of training works...

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 ...

In this paper, we examine the impact of scheduling policies on batch sizing decisions in a multi-item production system. We also investigate the joint effect of scheduling policies and batch sizing decisions on production lead times. In particular, we compare the performance of a first come-first-served (FCFS) policy with a group scheduling (GS) policy and study the effect of both on the optima...