BACKGROUND In Europe, progress in the development of health policies that address the needs of migrants and ethnic minorities has been slow. This is partly due to the absence of a strategic commitment by the health authorities. The Ministry of Public Health commissioned the ETHEALTH (EThnicity &HEALTH) group to formulate relevant recommendations to the public authorities with a view to reducing...

Among the many reasons that may limit the adoption of promising reform ideas, policy capacity is the least recognized. The concept itself is not widely understood. Although policy capacity is concerned with the gathering of information and the formulation of options for public action in the initial phases of policy consultation and development, it also touches on all stages of the policy proces...

To advance understanding of key health policy issues and to advocate, in concert with others as appropriate, health policy that will improve health and the manner in which health care and financing systems serve Americans. Goals The Institute's Goals are to: • Identify significant long-term health policy issues; • Organize internal and external resources to analyze such policies; • Improve unde...

This special issue of the Journal is devoted to understanding the many roads that lead toward achieving health equity. The eleven articles in the issue portray an America that is struggling with the clash between its historical ideal of pursuing equality for all and its ambivalence toward achieving equity in all social domains, especially health. Organized in five sections, the issue contains a...

OBJECTIVE This paper traces the background of involvement and increasing external activity of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (RANZCP) in the policy and project area. CONCLUSIONS Throughout 2008, representatives of the RANZCP paused to review progress and celebrate successes in the implementation of the College's stated aim to develop an externally focussed polic...

the focus on public policy and health equity is discussed in reference to the current global health policy discussion on universal health coverage (uhc). this initiative has strong commitment from the leadership of the international organizations involved, but a lack of policy clarity outside of the health financing component may limit the initiative’s impact on health inequity. in order to add...

This commentary on the Editorial ‘The politics and analytics of health policy’ by Professor Calum Paton focuses on two issues. First, it points to the unclear links between ideas, ideology, values, and discourse and policy, and warns that discourse is often a poor guide to enacted policy. Second, it suggests that realism, particularly ‘programme theory’ are useful tools for health policy analys...

This article aims to discuss the concepts of Social Determination of Health and Social Determinants of Health, by establishing a comparison between each of their guiding perspectives and investigating their implications on the development of health policies and health actions. We propose a historical and conceptual reflection, highlighting the Theory on the Social Production of Health, followed...

Link and Phelan (1995) developed the theory of fundamental causes to explain why the association between socioeconomic status (SES) and mortality has persisted despite radical changes in the diseases and risk factors that are presumed to explain it. They proposed that the enduring association results because SES embodies an array of resources, such as money, knowledge, prestige, power, and bene...

While many health services strive to be equitable, accessible and inclusive, peoples' right to health often goes unrealized, particularly among vulnerable groups. The extent to which health policies explicitly seek to achieve such goals sets the policy context in which services are delivered and evaluated. An analytical framework was developed--EquiFrame--to evaluate 1) the extent to which 21 C...