78 BMJ | 10 JANUARY 2009 | VolUMe 338 Devolution and spending will probably be the two main health legacies of Tony Blair’s Labour government. Spending, because the historically low cost NHS received one of the greatest bursts of funding in history, with long term consequences for workforce, infrastructure, and patients; and devolution, because it created four distinct health systems just as th...

To the Editor: In the report on the spread of obesity in a social network, by Christakis and Fow­ ler, and the accompanying editorial by Barabási (July 26 issue),1,2 variables of social and economic status (SES) are not mentioned. Social networks conceal a high degree of social homogeneity — that is, people are more likely to network with people at similar income and educational levels — and we...

The rise in obesity levels in the U.S. in the past several decades has been dramatic, with serious implications for public health and the economy. Experiences in tobacco control and other public health initiatives have shown that public policy may be a powerful tool to effect structural change to alter population-level behavior. In 2007, the National Cancer Institute convened a meeting to discu...

the purpose of this research is studying the effect of policy research in policy making area. for this, has been used from a model that is presented by dukeshire and thurlow. this model is consist from four dimension; recognizing problems and identifying issues, understanding key issues, supporting a selected plan of action and monitoring process evaluating impact. in a survey among policy rese...

background in 2004, the health system in iran initiated an organizational reform aiming to increase the autonomy of teaching hospitals and make them more decentralized. the policy led to the formation of a board of trustees in each hospital and significant modifications in hospitals’ financing. since the reform aimed to improve its predecessor policy (implementation of hospital autonomy began i...

in a recent article, mannion and davies argue that there are a multitude of ways in which organizations (such as the national health service [nhs]) can deal with wrongdoing or ethical problems, including the formation of policies that encourage and protect would-be whistleblowers. however, it is important to distinguish internal reporting about wrongdoing from whistleblowing proper, because the...

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...

although public policy analysis is essential for public policy systems, the lack of public policy analysis is one of the most important problems of public policy making system in iran. thus, this research implemented to achieve a model for analyzing public policies, using multiple grounded theory method, to create theories and models compatible with the country`s conditions. for this purpose, p...

this research surveys the relationship between elements of identity and foreign policy indicators in the islamic republic of iran (i.r.i.). for this purpose, at first it explains constructivism theory because of the essence of i.r.i constitution and islamic-iranian norms and values in foreign policy. according to this approach, these values and norms shape the i.r.i. identity, and identity dete...