That public health policy and practice should be evidence based is a seemingly uncontroversial claim. Yet governments and citizens routinely reject the best available evidence and prefer policies that reflect other considerations and concerns. The most common explanations of this paradox emphasise scientific disagreement, the power of 'politics', or the belief that scientists and policymakers l...

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...

This paper considers how environmental policies should respond to macroeconomic downturns. It first explores the implications of the global economic downturn of 2008-09 for environmental policies, focusing in particular on the example of action against climate change. The arguments for and against activist fiscal policies in general are then reviewed, and the case made that a demand-induced dow...

Gender inequities in health prevail in most countries despite ongoing attempts to eliminate them. Assessment of gender-sensitive health policies can be used to identify country specific progress as well as gaps and issues that need to be addressed to meet health equity goals. This study selected and measured the existence of gender-sensitive health policies in a low- (Peru), middle- (Colombia),...

This paper analyzes the bond as a strategy for practices of care in public health policies. The analysis was structured around the Foucauldian tools of truth and forms of government that constitute policies of subjectivation. The discussion surrounds the correlation between the National Policy of Primary Health Care and other documents of public policies as part of this approach that makes it p...

Democracy functions as a system with formal and informal institutional interrelated mechanisms serving the purpose of translating social preferences into public policies. Enhancing the effectiveness of society’s dispute resolution mechanisms is also a way to address social preferences through public policies within the judicial domain.1 Therefore, it is necessary to ensure that the institutions...

Since the creation of Union of South American Nations (UNASUR), health policies became a strategic factor in South America to collectively balance the legacy of neoliberal policies in the region. The aim of this article is first to describe the social, political, and economic processes that explain the emergence of UNASUR and its focus on social policy through healthcare. We then analyze how by...

The road safety literature is typified by a high degree of compartmentalization between studies that focus on infrastructure and traffic conditions and those devoted to the evaluation of public policies and regulations. As a result, few studies adopt a unified empirical framework in their attempts at evaluating the road safety performance of public interventions, thus limiting our understanding...

BACKGROUND The evidence base for the impact of social determinants of health has been strengthened considerably in the last decade. Increasingly, the public health field is using this as a foundation for arguments and actions to change government policies. The Health in All Policies (HiAP) approach, alongside recommendations from the 2010 Marmot Review into health inequalities in the UK (which ...

Efforts to mitigate health inequity are at the heart of health policy in Israel and in many developing countries seeking to advance toward universal health coverage. This commentary uses the conceptual framework and the description of health policy interventions presented in a recent IJHPR article to compare policies implemented by Israel's Ministry of Health during 2011-2014 with policies unde...