Health Policy Analysis through Kingdon Framework

Running head: HEALTH POLICY ANALYSIS THROUGH KINGDON’S FRAMEWORK
HEALTH POLICY ANALYSIS THROUGH KINGDON’S FRAMEWORK
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1HEALTH POLICY ANALYSIS THROUGH KINGDON’S FRAMEWORK
Oral health is essential for the overall health and well-being of an individual. The
Government of Australia addresses the need of having a healthy mouth to people for their overall
health as a healthy mouth enables them to speak eat and socialize without any discomfort (Mehta
and Kaur 2012). Water fluoridation is one of the most efficient ways of battling tooth decay for
those regions, which has the significant level of dental caries. Providing those regions of the
country with extensive level of caries with the optimal level of water fluoridation is one of the
most cost effective preventive measures the government can give (Gil-Montoya et al. 2015).
There are many surveys which showed that the children who lives on those region that received
fluoridated water has less percentage of tooth decay than those children who do not get
fluoridated water (Iheozor-Ejiofor et al. 2013).
For the prevention of dental caries, the level of fluoride in public water supply has to be
well adjusted. The department of health of the Australian Government has recognized the issue
and has passed a policy named Water fluoridation code for practice, which meets the
requirement of Water Fluoridation Act 2008 and environment legislation. Government of
Australia as used this policy to select the dose of fluoride content in the water(National Health
and Medical Research Council, 2017).
This essay is written with the purpose of analyzing the stated policy statement. Analyzing
a policy is often a hard task as its scope is broad. To analyze this policy, the multiple streams
framework is used. By the multiple stream framework, Kingdon has invented a way to
understand the public policy agenda within the political system.

2HEALTH POLICY ANALYSIS THROUGH KINGDON’S FRAMEWORK
The Multiple streams policy-setting framework:
Kingdon has proposed a strategy, which states about the three different categories of
interdependent variables. These variables interact with each other and give rise to perfect setting
for making an agenda (Howlett, McConnell and Perl 2015). Kingdon states that these three
variables remain different and more or less independent of each other until a specific time being,
when a policy window opens.
These three streams are known as the problem, policy and political stream.
 The problem stream is the perception of the problem, whichis seen in public when the
government takes action in order to solve it. The policy makers analyze the problems and
try to resolve them by taking action (Maltby 2013).
 The policy stream is the output and analysis of the problem, which proposes the solution
to the problem. This part analyses the possibilities of problem actions and inactions, and
narrows these down to the feasible action (Zahariadis 2014).
 The political steam includes those factors, which influences the body politics such as the
executive and legislative turnover, interest groups and the advocacy campaigns (Ackrill,
Kay and Zahariadis 2013).
Usage of Kingdon’s framework to describe the policy:
The problem stream:
Dental disease such as caries comes with many difficult outcomes such as substantial
pain, inability to eat some particular food, lower self-esteem, reduced capacity to sleep and social
embarrassment. Individual treatment for caries is somehow effective but it could delay the
process of healing depending on the degree of the decay and financial issues (Pierce, Smith-

3HEALTH POLICY ANALYSIS THROUGH KINGDON’S FRAMEWORK
Walter and Peterson 2014). Dental Caries is one of the most common diseases, which can be
seen in the modern societies and treating it individually might cost a considerable financial
burden. There are many people who comes from the rural area in Australia who suffers from
dental caries. In addition, the Aboriginals and the Torres Strait islanders have teeth problem
more than the non-aboriginals do(COAG Health Council, 2017). They are more likely to have
missing teeth than the other Australians are. They also have the higher chance of having gum
disease and they are less likely to ever receive any dental care from a dental care facility. The
same problem is with the people in the rural Australia, in spite of their ethnicity. They are very
less likely to go to the dental facility.
The policy stream:
The most common intervention for the dental caries prevention is water fluoridation, a
practice in which a liberal amount of fluoride is added in the water supply. It improves dental
health by incorporating into the crystalline structure into the teeth. The centers for disease
control prevention have proclaimed water fluoridation as one of the major achievement of 20th
century (Bache 2013). In Australia, there are many anecdotal evidence, in which showed that the
oral health of the children some areas which does not provide fluoridated water as prevention, is
worse (Rugg‐Gunn and Do 2012). There was a report released by the Australian Institute of
Health and Welfare in 2007, which documented that oral health, is better for those children who
live in those areas, which serves fluoridated water.
Water fluoridation provides the people with most cost effective way to treat tooth decay
and caries as it reaches everyone in the community regardless of the age, cast and creed. Fluoride
can naturally occur in various concentrations in all public water supplies. Those people who
receives water supplies with optimum fluoride level has shown less prevalence of tooth decay. A