Use of Policy Risk Assessment Results in Political Decision Making

The RAPID project established, during the first period, a thematic network of risk assessment experts, including relevant partners in the ten countries involved, the "Risk assessor database". The project devoted a specific activity, a single work package, to the dissemination and discussion of the methodology developed during" first two years of the project. National workshops were planned in each country to facilitate integrated knowledge translation activity, using a participatory approach to increase potential knowledge-users awareness on the RAPID project, and to engage them in using the RAPID guidance. Workshops were conceived to present case studies and the RAPID guidance to a targeted audience, to discuss and collect further insights, and integrate different perspectives in the final version of the policy evaluation methodology. However, national workshops also actively contributed to develop evidence based methodological guidance and increase its quality and relevance for potential users by bridging know-do gap between researchers and stakeholders; by involving decision makers and potential users in the knowledge creation process; by facilitating diverse stakeholder participation from governmental, academic and private sectors, carefully identified by national RAPID surveys as having direct expertise in the field of risk assessment. The cultural and administrative differences existing in the countries involved in RAPID guarantee the inclusion of a wide range of perspectives. Results of the national workshops helped to identify barriers and solutions for using the guidance, for adapting necessary changes to it and for communicating results to other potential users.

Public Health, Policy Analysis, Risk Assessment,and Impact Assessment

Public health has been defined as "the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life and promoting health through the organized efforts and informed choices of society, organizations, public and private, communities and individuals"(Winslow 1920) or as "the art of applying science in the context of politics so as to reduce inequalities in health while ensuring the best health for the greatest number"(WHO1998). As the challenges of public health have evolved, from sanitary surveillance and infectious diseases in the past, to chronic diseases, lifestyle factors,socioeconomic conditions, occupational and environmental health determinants,health reforms and others, so have the methods of assessment advanced by research technologies development. The new health threats and epidemics, such as AIDS, SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome), influenza H5N1, or emergencies like natural disasters or bioterrorism, effects of globalization and migration present new tasks to public health governance requiring new working methods.