Making and changing healthy public policy

Abstract

Revised by Kythé Beaumont, Jenny Douglas and Tom Heller from an original chapter by Linda Jones (2002). This chapter focuses more closely on the policy-making process. It discusses how policies are made and why issues are added to the policy agenda, and will guide you through som of the processes by which a certain number of policies achieve priority and become implemented in practice. ... This chapter suggests that people involved in public health work can influence policy decisions directly; for example, through lobbying and pressure group membership, and by the important role they play in policy implementation. However, in order to do so it is important to understand the nature of the policy-making process itself; what policy is and how it is made, influenced, implemented and changed