Health Promotion International · 1987 · 167 citations · 0 references
Public AffairsHealth PromotionPublic PolicyPolicy AnalysisPolitical EcologyPublic Health PolicyHealth Policy AdvocacyHealth Promotion PolicyPolicy DevelopmentPolicy MakingPublic Policy StrategyHealth Policy DevelopmentHealth Policy StrategyHealthy Public PolicyOperational Performance IndicatorsReal-world Contextual Learning
Public policies are increasingly recognized for their potential to promote health, yet the mechanisms by which healthy public policy emerges remain unclear. The article aims to develop a new generation of policy studies that teach how to translate the health‑promotion potential of public policy into political reality. The authors propose an ecological policy‑making framework that maps the social climate, key players, and strategic actions, and they suggest operational indicators and study methods to derive general principles for developing healthful public policies.
During the 1980s increasing attention has been given to the view that a vast array of public policies have great potential for health promotion and that this potential ought to be developed. After briefly discussing the basis for this concept and its policy implications, this article turns to a major corequisite for making healthy public policy a political reality: learning how to do it. Where healthy public policy exists, how did it happen? This is a question that calls for a new generation of policy studies, one that is relevant to advocates of healthy public policy within and outside governments. An ecological framework of policy-making is proposed for such studies, delineating the social climate, key players, and strategic action. From it, operational indicators and study methods are suggested, in order to learn some general principles, within a real-world context, of how to develop public policies that are healthful.