Health Policy Analysis and Equity

This assignment delves into the realm of health policy analysis with a particular focus on social determinants of health and health equity. It examines various research articles that explore the interplay between policy analysis theory and its application in understanding and addressing health disparities. The assigned readings shed light on contextual factors influencing health committees, tobacco control approaches and inequity, the political landscape surrounding healthy public policies, and the impact of policies like standardized tobacco packaging. Furthermore, the assignment emphasizes the importance of integrating health equity considerations into guideline development.

Policy Analysis

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
a) Background and Rationale.......................................................................................................3
b) Outline.....................................................................................................................................3
CRITERIA FOR ANALYZING POLICY......................................................................................3
Stake holders and different groups:.............................................................................................3
Lowest for accessibility:..............................................................................................................4
Resources: ...................................................................................................................................4
Monitoring and evaluation: .........................................................................................................4
POLICY DOCUMENT ANALYSIS...............................................................................................5
EVALUATION OF HEALTH PROMOTION CAPACITY...........................................................7
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................9
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INTRODUCTION
a) Background and Rationale
Policy analysis is a method which is used to evaluate and examine the different options
available in public administration, which can be used in implementing the targets set by the
government. The analysis of policies can be done in two ways. One is the analysis of the policy,
which is already existing (Purcell, O'Rourke and Rivis, 2015). The analysis will be analytical and
descriptive. The second one is the analysis of new policies, which can be different and
perspective. The main purpose and area of interest of these analysis is to identify any faults
present in the current policies and to promote the health awareness. The public should be aware
of the government policies for different health diseases.
The rationale behind policy analysis is to perform a redundancy check over different
parameters so that accuracy and correctness of the concerned policy can be evaluated. The
National Tobacco Policy is being analysed in this report for gaining an insight regarding
whereabouts of the concerned policy.
b) Outline
The “National Tobacco policy's” main aim is to reduce the harm, which is related to
tobacco. The object of this policy is to increase the health condition of all the people by reducing
the consumption of smoking and tobacco. Other than this, the policies have some more
objectives like; reduce the affordability of tobacco products, encourage the smokers to quit,
decrease or eliminate the advertising or sponsorship of tobacco products. It also aims yo reduce
the smoke free workplace, the supply of tobacco products and many other non healthy tobacco
products.
CRITERIA FOR ANALYZING POLICY
A policy is developed for meeting respective goals and objectives due to which the
concerned policy was designed. Respective resources can be utilised only when clear idea
regarding corrective actions and issues is acquired. The criteria for analysing policy are depicted
as follows: Economic criteria: The impact of a policy directly or indirectly on the economic
conditions of the country and the respective stakeholders has to be evaluated. This helps
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in gaining an idea regarding relevancy of the policy over the aimed subject. The
intangible costs, fixed costs or direct impact over net worth are some of the components
of economic criteria when considering policy analysis. Equity criteria: When organisations are concerned then equity criteria is considered to be
most significant. It helps in analysing and understanding the social advantages and
disadvantages which are associated with the policy. This kind of evaluation helps in
assessing the long term and short term effects which come up after policy application. Technical criteria: There are some issues and problems faced by groups and
organisations. The analysis of policy with technical criteria helps in evaluating the
feasibility, reliability and validity of policy. Political criteria: The extent of acceptability of a policy amongst all the stakeholders and
affecting groups is understood through political criteria. It also demonstrates the viability
of respective policy with its responsiveness and appropriateness in political terms.
 Administrative criteria: Public policies are examined and analysed using the
administrative criteria. The ability of the organisation to implement and adhere with the
policy that is being prepared is understood. Furthermore, the availability of resources
according to requirement of policy are also analysed through this criteria.
According to the criterions depicted above, following elements are considered for making
the policy analysis more critical. Following questions have been developed based on these
criteria to facilitate the entire process of policy analysis.
Economic criteria:
 What is the economic impact of National Tobacco Policy on Australia?
 Is the policy incurring more cost for the government in terms of maintenance? Does the policy bear any sort of extra expenses for stakeholders?
Equity criteria:
 Is the ideology behind policy acceptable to stakeholders?
 Can societal values and beliefs be hampered through this policy? What are the major advantages and disadvantages experienced by both stakeholders and
extended groups after implementing the policy?
Technical criteria:
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 Is the scope of policy meeting technical criteria?
 Is the National Tobacco Policy feasible for the government and the private organisations?
If yes/no, then how? Can individual groups rely on the aspects of this policy?
Political criteria:
 Is the policy relevant politically?
 Is it viable for the country to acquire negative response in context of the policy? Can it be inferred that no political conflicts and clashes shall arise if this policy is
implemented?
Administrative criteria:
 Are the resources required for this policy accessible?
 Can the organisations and groups implementing this policy be capable of affording and
gathering the respective resources?
 Are there clear definitions and clauses provided for easy administration of the policy?
Stake holders and different groups:
For analyzing any policy, stakeholders plays an important key. Because they can get
affected by the organization and their investments also. For tobacco, there are numerous
stakeholders who have invested money in the promotion of tobacco and other hazardous items.
These policies can reduce the investments, and can increase the social awareness about the side
effects of consuming tobacco (Rose and et.al., 2015). The improvements of these stakeholders
can decide the success or failure rate of policies. The government have to analyze that all the
stake holders which are related to this policy should contribute in the formulation of the policy,
so that the government and the policy will get enough time, various effective and efficient ways
to evaluate this policy. Stakeholders and different groups that get affected by National Tobacco
Policy are considered for analysis under the equity criteria. People are largely benefited by the
awareness programs which are undertaken in this policy. On the other hand, when people quit
tobacco products then companies and agencies manufacturing the same are affected.
Lowest for accessibility:
The another criteria on which the policies can be analyzed is the accessibility. For local
use and the people, the policies should be such that tobacco should not be easily available for the
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people to access. In National Tobacco Policy, it was clearly mentioned that in Australia, tobacco
should not be available at all the places. It should be supplied to very limited stores. Another
thing which has to be analyzed is the cost of tobacco product (Scollo and et.al., 2014). The cost
must be kept high enough, infect very high enough. People should not find very easy to buy
tobacco related products. The products should be out of reach for most of the population. This is
the way, the government can reduce the consumption of such kind of products. In the policy, it
should be mentioned that anyone who found distributing tobacco without legal license must be
severely punished.
Resources:
To analyze the policy, they have to make sure that all the resources, which are easily
available for the people should be closed. The factories or the places from where tobacco is
manufactured, must be very limited. They should have the government's permission for
manufacturing the tobacco products. The places from where tobacco can be available must be
seized. The policy should be technically feasible. The policy must have the same effect on all the
population of groups. It should not be like, one part of the country is heavily affected and other
part is least affected. All the population of different age groups, must accept the policy. They
have to realize that, it is for their own group. These type of effects can reduce or limit the ways
of data collection (Stenberg and at.al., 2014). The policy maker must collect the data from
everywhere before analyzing anything. So it is advisable that there should be enough resources
to collect the data and the data should not be limited. This will make very difficult in analyzing
the current policy. As per the administrative criteria, the government is able to cater respective
resources and implement the National Tobacco Policy quite easily.
Monitoring and evaluation:
As per the administrative criteria, if the organisation is able to implement the respective
policy easily and is also able to align and adhere with the facts and points of the policy then
successful implementation can be inferred.
The policy must be monitored time and time again. The government have to note down
all the incoming quantity and selling quantity of tobacco products. This will help in identifying,
whether the sales of the products is increased or decreased. This is also the effective way to
analyze the policy. Because if the sales rate increased from last time, then it is clear that policy is
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not doing proper justice to the people. The monitoring should be followed by the evaluation.
Policy must be evaluated to find out the final result of tobacco distribution. It is advisable that
evaluation is on the basis of current results, this will help in analyzing the present scenario. This
process also includes the statistics of the places which are severely affected by the tobacco
consuming population. This will help the government to take more strict actions and to
implement more strict rules, so that people will find it difficult to consume tobacco.
POLICY DOCUMENT ANALYSIS
After doing the analysis of National Tobacco Policy, it has been found that the
government is doing significant effort in reducing the consumption of tobacco. These type of
policies can also be considered as the frame work, which can be used in identifying the well-
being of the citizen (Welch and et.al., 2017). To analyze the policies, various legislative bodies
can be used. Each analysis is having some outcome,which can be either positive or negative.
Proper analysis is done to study in depth for finding the major problem and its solution. The
document analysis based on the criteria can be done to check the effectiveness of the policy. This
can be done to find out, in which part the policy is doing significant job and where it requires
improvements. Another thing is the efficiency of the policy. To find out the efficiency, the
results have to be checked which is on the basis of the calculation and statistics observed after
doing the analysis.
The framework can also be used in identifying the problems assessed by the policy. It can
help in finding out the targets of the policy and whether they achieved it or not. After this, proper
study should be done on the effects of the policy. If it requires any kind of changes, then it needs
to be done and again have to be implemented. If the policy is not doing good, then there should
be an alternative policy, which is more suitable and well structured. This alternative policy can
be used to put more effect. There are different ways which can be used to analyze the
implementation and development of the policy (George and et.al., 2015). Many governing bodies
use this to find out the important factors of this policy and also helps in finding out the
consequences. The government policy will be applicable to all the citizen.
The policy document analysis still remains very underdeveloped in Australia. There is a
set of predefined criteria which is used in the study of policy. National Tobacco policy is used in
finding out the places where more quantity of illegal tobacco is sold. This is also used in creating
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the awareness in public, that tobacco is not good for health. This can cause harm to the body.
There are various awareness programs run by the government. This can help in advertising the
side effects of the tobacco (Embrett and Randall, 2014). The document analysis can be done to
find out the involvement of stake holders. The government can take the help from stake holders
in running the policies. This will ensure that different stakeholder are doing their job in
increasing the general awareness in public. Stakeholders can include various community groups,
citizens, businessman, organizations which are non-governmental and it can also include the
opposing parties.
This document analysis can be done with the help of policy cycle. This method is the
simplest method and can be implemented as a loop or a circle. The first thing is to identify the
problems. After gathering the data from the analysis, the main thing is to find out the problem.
Where the policy is lacking and in which part of the country it is least effective. There are
different methods which can be used in examining the policy and finding its problem. This can
also be used in the ways by which the government can respond to that problem (Clarke and
Wilson, 2014). After this, it is followed by the implementation stage. This can be done by
including other alternative policies. The policy which is the best one, that is selected and then
implemented for some period of time. After this, the data is collected in the form of documents
and this data is evaluated. There are different ways by which the evaluation can be done, which
includes, the effectiveness, the cost it takes to implement the policy, and after the
implementation what are the outcomes of this policy.
The main purpose of this document analysis is to identify that the criteria what used
earlier in analysis are efficient or not. The analysis should be monitored carefully, so that it will
be easy to find out the statistics from all over the country. The resources used by the government
should be effective enough to generate social awareness about the health risks of consuming
tobacco (Raphael, 2015). There are many clauses in this policy, by which various illegal firms
have been shut down for manufacturing tobacco. Thus decreasing the amount of tobacco
supplied in the market. The cost of the products are also increased by the government, so that it
will be difficult for people to buy the product, and also the accessibility is also reduced. Because
the stores are limited and the price is high. By this way, the “National Tobacco Policy” is
successful in decreasing the tobacco consuming population.
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EVALUATION OF HEALTH PROMOTION CAPACITY
The changes in health behaviour has to be tracked so that effectiveness of the concerned
policy can be examined (A framework for health promotion and disease prevention programs.
2017). The use of health promotion framework helps in understanding this effectiveness.
The first health promotion conference was held in Ottawa, and this was held to promote
and develop health awareness around the globe. The “Integrated health promotion guide”
defines a process which encourage people to improve their health and to prevent them from
taking tobacco (Integrated Health Promotion Resource Kit. 2017). The group or individual can
able to identify the consequences of consuming tobacco. The health promotion is not only the
responsibility of health sector, but to all the person of their well-being. The stakeholder and other
associated partners must have the clear identification to identify the problems and their solutions
as quick as possible. The health promotion quality should have their focus on implementing and
evaluating the policies applied by the government.
This guide should identify and recognize the values of different organizations and
agencies which are helping in promoting the policies. This guides main motive is to move
towards the highest level of integration, which is Collaboration. This can be done by setting the
priority, like in which part health promotion is most needed. After identification, they must set
the benchmark or ground rules, which will be applicable to all (Cheung, Mirzaei and Leeder,
2010). The last part is implementation, after setting the rules, the government have to implement
those policies. After certain time, the evaluation of this promotion is done, which will identify up
to which mark the capacity of promotion is reached. This will help in developing more effective
ways of promotion in the next health policy.
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CONCLUSION
From the analysis done, it has been concluded that the health awareness about tobacco is
very necessary. All the people need to realize that consuming tobacco is not good for health and
that can cause disease like cancer, infections which are life threatening. To analyze the policy,
there are various criteria, which can be used. These criteria will give some data and by evaluating
those data, the exact condition of the policy can be found out. The government should make the
right policies, which be helpful in creating the health awareness of consuming tobacco. There
should be an alternative policy which can be used, if the first policy is not successful. The health
promotion should be such that it affect more number of population about not to smoke. And
encourage the people who smoke to quit smoking.
George, A., and et.al., 2015
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Clarke, M. and Wilson, A.G., 2014. Developments in planning models for health care policy
analysis. Medical Geography (Routledge Revivals): Progress and Prospect. p.248.
Embrett, M.G. and Randall, G.E., 2014. Social determinants of health and health equity policy
research: exploring the use, misuse, and nonuse of policy analysis theory. Social Science
& Medicine. 108. pp.147-155.
George, A., and et.al., 2015. Anchoring contextual analysis in health policy and systems
research: a narrative review of contextual factors influencing health committees in low
and middle income countries. Social Science & Medicine. 133. pp.159-167.
Purcell, K.R., O'Rourke, K. and Rivis, M., 2015. Tobacco control approaches and inequity—how
far have we come and where are we going?. Health promotion international. 30(suppl 2).
pp.ii89-ii101.
Raphael, D., 2015. Beyond policy analysis: the raw politics behind opposition to healthy public
policy. Health promotion international. 30(2). pp.380-396.
Rose, S.W., and et.al., 2015. Public Support for Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco
Control Act Point-of-Sale Provisions: Results of a National Study. Journal Information.
105(10).
Scollo, M., and et.al., 2014. Early evidence about the predicted unintended consequences of
standardised packaging of tobacco products in Australia: a cross-sectional study of the
place of purchase, regular brands and use of illicit tobacco. BMJ open. 4(8). p.e005873.
Stenberg, K., and at.al., 2014. Advancing social and economic development by investing in
women's and children's health: a new Global Investment Framework. The Lancet.
383(9925). pp.1333-1354.
Welch, V.A., and et.al., 2017. GRADE Equity guidelines 1: Health equity in guideline
development-introduction and rationale. Journal of clinical epidemiology.
Online
Cheung KK., Mirzaei M., Leeder S., 2010. Health policy analysis: a tool to evaluate in policy
documents the alignment between policy statements and intended outcomes. [Online].
Available Through <https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21108900>. [Accessed on
16th May, 2017].
Integrated Health Promotion Resource Kit. 2017. [Online]. Available Through
<https://www.ncoa.org/resources/integrated-health-promotion-resource-kit/>. [Accessed
on 16th May, 2017].
A framework for health promotion and disease prevention programs. 2017. [Online]. Available
Through <https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7762887>. [Accessed on 1st June,
2017].
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