Policy and Evaluation in Public Health

POLICY AND
EVALUATION IN PUBLIC
HEALTH

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
BACKGROUND.............................................................................................................................1
Explanation of key concepts........................................................................................................1
Importance of the public health topic and key statistics on the public health topic....................1
Value of a healthy public policy/health in all policies approach in informing the policy process
and thereby improving individual, family, community and population health and wellbeing....3
MAIN BODY..................................................................................................................................3
History of policy in harmful drinking area, ways in which it has evolved over time and reason
because of which it has evolved in the way that it has................................................................3
What social, cultural, economic, political, and environmental factors have influenced ways in
which policy has been developed. Explanation and analysis of reason because of which these
factors influence the policy in the way they did..........................................................................4
Policy vision, aim and objectives................................................................................................5
Population targeted by policy and why.......................................................................................5
Key elements of the policy, the key programmes and interventions and ways in which policy
think these programmes and interventions will improve population health................................5
Are programmes and interventions included in the policy appropriate from a public health
perspective and are there any gaps in the policy.........................................................................6
Key stakeholders were involved in the policy process, reason because of which they were
involved, influence they had........................................................................................................6
Does policy address health equity and inequalities issue............................................................7
How is the policy being implemented and put into operation.....................................................7
What do any existing evaluations tell us about the effectiveness of the policy..........................7
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................9

INTRODUCTION
Government has developed guidelines for people that helps in understanding unit of
alcohol that they should consume and how frequently they should consume it (Mialon and
McCambridge, 2018). This policy was important to be developed because more than 50 percent
population of UK do not consume alcohol as per these guidelines and consumption of excess
alcohol is harmful and dangerous of health. This essay will be focusing upon harmful drinking
issues among population of UK and policy developed by government of UK for tackling this
issue. This harmful drinking policy was developed so that consumption of alcohol among people
can be reduced.
BACKGROUND
Explanation of key concepts
It is fundamentally important for government so that they can bring improvement within
health, well-being, and safety of people. Not only this, these polices are also developed to set a
standard for all the major activities for a person such as education, job, salary, heath, healthcare
services etc. Policy development is a plan or course of action by the government (Das and et. al.,
2019). Policies developed by government mostly comply within existing law but mostly led to
proposal of new laws. Policy ‘2010 to 2015 government policy: harmful drinking’ is an
important policy developed UK government that has been developed in order to bring changes
within overall behaviour of people in terms of drinking alcohol. It not only helps in generating
awareness among people about alcohol consumption, but helps in limiting unit of consumption
so that it harmful effect upon health can be reduced.
Importance of the public health topic and key statistics on the public health topic
Public health is an important topic which is required to be developed so that government
can support individuals, organizations, society, tackle any kind of preventable disease or issue,
mortality, and disability. In terms of public health, development of government policy is
important so that overall health of people can be enhanced, issues due to which overall health of
people can be degraded can also be tackled or eliminated (Babor and et. al., 2018). Some of the
public health policies have been developed so that to support healthier lifestyle among people.
Harmful alcohol consumption is one of the most important health topic which is required
to be focused upon today from time to time consumption of alcohol is increasing day by day.
Consumption of high unit of alcohol is one of the main reason behind various diseases or heath
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issues such as liver damage etc. Not only this, according to current epidemiological statistics on
UK harmful drinking, it has been identified that mortality rate in UK is increasing due to harmful
or excessive consumption of Alcohol. In UK, in 20187,551 alcohol-specific deaths were
recorded i.e., around 11.9 per 100,000 people (Viet Cuong and et. al., 2018).
Above graph clealry helps in understandign that as number of units of alcohol
consumption per day of an individual increases, mortality rate also increases. Another graph
below helps in understanding that as number of unit consumption of alcohol among people
increases related health risk factor among people also increases. Below graph also helps in
understanding that women are more at risk as comared to men if their alcohol unit conumption
increase.
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