1.Why is a policy cycle an appropriate tool for developing a new policy? (your response must include referenced materials and do not use dot points).
2.How does the ‘new public health’ differ from the old public health approach? (your response must include referenced materials and do not use dot points).
3.What are key sociological issues and how do they determine a person’s state of health? (your response must include referenced materials and do not use dot points).
4.What is meant by the term ‘power’ in policy development and change? (your response must include referenced materials and do not use dot points).
5.If you were to create a new policy to develop a smoke free environment for the university what are at least 4 factors you would include and why? (your response must include referenced materials and do not use dot points).
8.In what ways are “interconnected systems” problematic for health care policy development? (your response must include referenced materials and do not use dot points).
Policy, power, and politics play an important role in the provision of healthcare service. Power and politics are key determinants of health policy development. The general description of health policy is set of goals, decisions, or plans that are developed with the intention to achieve specific health care goal within a society. Health policy development follows certain policy cycle that has various development stages. The aim of this paper is to answer some policy and health sociological questions that explore policy, power, and politics in healthcare service provision.
1.Policy cycle is appropriate in a number of ways during the development of a new policy. Firstly, policy cycle help in the determination of various policy aspects such as policy agendas. Policy cycle enables the policy makers to understand various policy stages that are important for the development of a new policy. For instance, agenda setting is an important aspect of the policy development process and plays a critical role in every stage of development of a new policy (Holden & Lin, 2012).
Secondly, policy cycle enables determination of the policy financial requirements that forms an important element of a policy. Financial evaluation of every policy is an important stage of development of a new policy. For instance, in development of a new health policy, there is needed to determine the projected financial requirement. During the development of a new policy, budgeting forms a core element of the policy cycle. Determination of policy financial requirement enables determination of the feasibility of the new policy (Nick, Nhung, Foster, Cobiac & Blakely, 2012).
Thirdly, policy cycle provides the basis for decision making especially for identification of problems, selection of strategies and evaluates policy options. Policy cycle sets require the involvement of various stakeholders such as the government, researchers, media and politicians at various stages of the policy development. This implies that policy cycle provides the decision-making platform where many players are allowed to factor in their decisions. Policy cycle makes the implementation and evaluation of the new policy possible since it provides the various stages of policy development (Robinson, 2013).
2.The Australian health care system has evolved based on the old public health approach and new public health approach. The two public health approaches represent different perspectives that have been developed over time within the Australia health system. New public health approach refers to the public health approach is a modern public health approach that tries to address current determinants of public health. New public health approach was established nearly in 1970 and is based on the need to address social, environmental and behavioral determinants such as education, accessibility to health, socioeconomic status and education. The new public health approach looks at more social complex factors that interplay resulting in the overall public health situation (Althaus, Bridgman & Davis, 2013).
Old public health approach refers to the perspective of public health used in Australia prior to the adoption of new public health approach. Old public health approach focuses on the biological determinants of health such as clinical, treatment and direct factors such as disease. This direct determinant of health was used to assess the public health situation that in turn determines the treatment. This implies that the old public health approach did not factor in complex societal factors that have been known to forms an interconnection resulting in the social determinant of health. In addition, as known today more complex factors have arisen that determines the overall public health status and does not necessarily mean clinical determinants (Pega, Nicole, Rasanathan, Hosseinpoor & Neira, 2017).
3.Sociological issues of an individual, a group of individuals and society play an important role in person’s state of health. People from the certain sociological background are closely linked to certain health conditions. Some of the sociological issues that affect person’s state of health include family, employment status, and education. Firstly, the family is an important sociological class that determines an individual’s health since the family may lead to poor health state or good health. Family can sometimes influence inheritance of some health disorders such as debates that in turn affects personal health. In addition, family issues such as conflict may lead to psychological and emotional stress leading to the poor health state of an individual (Braveman & Gottlieb, 2014).
Secondly, employment status or income state is related to the health state of a person. For instance, the amount of money earned by an individual determines the nutrition status of an individual and ability of an individual to afford healthcare. Better healthcare is essential for human life and this is correlated to high income earned by an individual. In addition, low income is related to the inability to afford healthcare services hence poor health state of a person (Lietz, 2012).
Thirdly, education is another sociological issue that determines the health state of a person. Education especially health education determines the ability of people to accesses healthcare services. Access to quality education improves the quality of health of an individual since education favors better healthcare services. In addition, education facilitates to knowledge on cure and prevention of disease. This, in turn, determines the disease prevention and cures hence a better health state of an individual (Cockerham, 2012).
4.The term power is related to influence that an individual has and their influence in the decision-making process during policy development. Power often results from political or wealth influence that an individual has in the society hence their decision making. In policy development, power increases the accessibility to community agendas that are a recipe for decision making particularly those that concern the public. Politics or wealth increase interest in leadership and public engagement and this also play an important role in the conception of public agendas and policies. When developing both public and health policies, the interest of those individuals in power is considered first since their influence is fundamental in policy development (Kiddell?Monroe, 2014).
Power has both direct and indirect association with change in the society. More political influence determines the power concentration which in turn determines the desires to cause a change in the governance of public organizations. In addition, the ability of an individual in power to evoke change in public agendas enables one to influence others within the public domain. Wealth as an aspect of power also increases influence an individual has in the society and this allow change to be effective (Marshall, Mitchell & Wirt, 2009). The concentration of power has an impact on structural systems of an organization and this influences changes in structural systems. Moreover, changes are determined by the development of policies and power play an important role in policy formulation and implementation.
5.Factors such as the cost of the policy, the cost required for the development and implementation of the policy is an important factor I would include. Firstly, cultural factors are important factors that play role in the development of a smoke-free environment for the university. Culture is an important social factor that has influence in the life of students within the university. The culture of students is an important aspect that determines their beliefs towards this health policy. This implies that developing a new smoke-free environment for the university requires cultural consideration that will not bring conflicts between student and administration or between student themselves (Buse, Mays & Walt, 2012).
Secondly, structural factors are social factors that cannot change that may include politics, economy, employment and demographic factors. Structure factors are considered since they have influence in operation of the university and hence will have influence in the implementation of the policy within the university. For instance, demographic factors such as genders will play a critical role in the development of this smoke-free environment for the university (Althaus, Bridgman & Davis, 2013).
Thirdly, situational factors include those prevailing condition such as drought or wars that also has an impact on the policy. The prevailing condition both in the university and around the university are considered since they may influence university structure or administration. Consideration of these situational factors opens the ground for an unprecedented situation or the situation of the university and its environment at the time of developing the policy. Lastly, international factors also will be considered since the smoke-free environment for the university will affect both local student and international students. The policy features need to factor in the reaction from the international community in the event of development of this policy (Hardee, Ashford, Rottach, Jolivet & Kiesel, 2012).
Conclusion
In conclusion, policy power and politics are interconnected systems that play an important role in decision-making process. Policy cycle is essential in policy development process since it determines the financial; determine policy aspects and decision-making process. Health policy and government policy document differs significantly in content and area of application. Power also influences resource allocation and changes in the policy development process. Interconnected systems are problematic since they slow down the decision-making process and encourage biases in the allocation of resources.
References
Althaus, C. M., Bridgman, P. & Davis, G. (2013). Policy analysis: The Australian policy handbook 5th edition. In Crows Nest, A; Allen & Unwin 59 – 89 Chapter Number 5
Braveman, P. & Gottlieb, L., (2014). The social determinants of health: it’s time to consider the causes of the causes. Public health reports, 129(1_suppl2), pp.19-31.
Buse, K., Mays, N. & Walt, G. (2012). Making health policy: Understanding Public Health. McGraw-Hill Education: Open University Press.
Cockerham, W. C. (2012). Medical sociology (12th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Hannigan, B. & Coffey, M. (2011). Where the wicked problems are: The case of mental health. Health policy, 101(3) 220 – 227
Hardee, K. Ashford, L. Rottach, E. Jolivet, R. & Kiesel, R. (2012). The Policy Dimensions of Scaling Up Health Initiatives. Washington, DC: Futures Group, Health Policy Project
Holden, C.A. & Lin, V. (2012). Network structures and their relevance to the policy cycle: A case study of The National Male Health Policy of Australia. Social Science & Medicine 74(2) 228 – 235
Kiddell?Monroe, R. (Aug 2014). Access to Medicines and Distributive Justice: Breaching D oha’s Ethical Threshold. Developing World Bioethics 14(2) 59 – 66
Lietz, J. (2012, January 17). More Columbus kids living in poverty. Examiner.com. Retrieved from https://www.examiner.com/children-s-health-in-columbus/more-columbus-kids-living-poverty.
Marshall, C., Mitchell, D. & Wirt, F. (2009). Influence, power, and policy-making: State Politics of Education. Peabody Journal of Education, 62(4):19-85. doi.org/10.1080/01619568509538492
Nick, W., Nhung, N., Foster, R., Cobiac L. & Blakely, T. (2012). Estimating the cost of new public health legislation. Bulletin of the World Health Organization, 90(7) Jul 01, 532 – 539
Pega, F., Nicole, V.; Rasanathan, K.; Hosseinpoor, A.R. & Neira, M. (2017). The need to monitor actions on the social determinants of health. Bulletin of the World Health Organization, 95 (11): 784–787. doi:10.2471/BLT.16.184622
Raphael, D. (2014). Beyond policy analysis: The raw politics behind opposition to the healthy public policy. Health Promotion International, 30: 380–96. doi:10.1093/heapro/dau044. PMID 24870808
Robinson, F. (2013). Global care ethics: beyond distribution, beyond justice. Journal of Global Ethics 9(2): 131 – 14
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