Libraries have been written about the theory and practice of public policy making. Yet, this enormous scholarship has proved insufficient to lift the veil of mystery and idiosyncrasy that shrouds the art of decision making. The heady ambition to turn both clinical practice and health policy into evidence-based bastions of rationalist decision making has been downgraded; the vocabulary is now “e...

This analysis focuses on public policies that affect primary HIV prevention and access to HIV care for Mexican migrants residing in California. Policy or structural level interventions, as opposed to behavioral or psychologic interventions, help to shape the environment in which people live. We use a conceptual model for policy analysis in public health to understand better the challenges faced...

Should we always engage in critical thinking about issues of public policy, such as health care, gun control, and LGBT rights? Michael Huemer (2005) has argued for the claim that in some cases it is not epistemically responsible to engage in critical thinking on these issues. His argument is based on a reliabilist conception of the value of critical thinking. This article analyzes Huemer’s argu...

This article serves as an introduction to the others published in this thematic issue of the Cadernos de Saúde Pública. The author makes a brief historical review of the concepts, approaches and methodologies used to study the relationships between social determinants and health outcomes. By analyzing the current global movement around social determinants of health he emphasizes that the distin...

OBJECTIVES In this paper we focus on governance and the added value of regionalization in the context of health policy implementation. What are regional boards' patterns of action in the governance process?How do these patterns favour policy implementation? ANALYTICAL FRAMEWORK: To enhance our understanding of the role of regional boards in governance processes, we relied on four conceptual con...

The presence of diverse ethnic-racial groups in the United States today is a source of national pride. However, this cultural sentiment is overshadowed by the reality that those ethnic-racial groups that are stigmatized carry a disproportionate burden of negative physical health outcomes. These systematic differences are referred to as health disparities. Although this phenomenon is fairly well...

Using market mechanisms in the provision of health services and seeing health care as a private good are approaches that have featured prominently in health sector reforms across the world. UNRISD research on global and local experiences of health care commercialization challenges this framework. It calls for reclaiming public policies that promote the purposes that health systems are set up to...

evidence now shows that the key drivers of poor health are social factors, such as education, employment, housing and urban environments. variations in these social factors—or the conditions in which we live our lives—have lead to a growth in health inequalities within and between countries. one of the key challenges facing those concerned with health equity is how to effect change across the b...

This paper reports the results of an analysis of the dissemination of community-based heart health promotion strategies. The research draws on diffusion and socio-ecological theories to study the first 10 years of heart health promotion in the public health system in Ontario, Canada. Using case description and interpretive analysis, the study describes developments in five stages of disseminati...