A guide to policy analysis as a research method

TLDR

Policy analysis helps explain how and why governments enact policies and their effects, yet public health policy research remains limited and theoretically underdeveloped. The article seeks to describe and critique various policy‑analysis approaches, guiding health‑promotion researchers, and illustrates them with a nutrition example. The authors outline three broad orientations—traditional, mainstream, and interpretive—each focusing on solution identification, actor interaction, and problem framing, respectively. Policy analysis clarifies how nutrition policies are adopted or rejected, informs advocacy, and equips researchers to grasp evidence use, values, interests, and political contexts, thereby enabling more effective health‑policy advocacy.

Abstract

Policy analysis provides a way for understanding how and why governments enact certain policies, and their effects. Public health policy research is limited and lacks theoretical underpinnings. This article aims to describe and critique different approaches to policy analysis thus providing direction for undertaking policy analysis in the field of health promotion. Through the use of an illustrative example in nutrition it aims to illustrate the different approaches. Three broad orientations to policy analysis are outlined: (i) Traditional approaches aim to identify the 'best' solution, through undertaking objective analyses of possible solutions. (ii) Mainstream approaches focus on the interaction of policy actors in policymaking. (iii) Interpretive approaches examine the framing and representation of problems and how policies reflect the social construction of 'problems'. Policy analysis may assist understanding of how and why policies to improve nutrition are enacted (or rejected) and may inform practitioners in their advocacy. As such, policy analysis provides researchers with a powerful tool to understand the use of research evidence in policymaking and generate a heightened understanding of the values, interests and political contexts underpinning policy decisions. Such methods may enable more effective advocacy for policies that can lead to improvements in health.