The exploration of the answers to these and other related questions falls into the realm of health policy. The meaning of the words "health policy" is not automatically clear, however, and people understand the concept of health policy in different ways. Gill Walt, whose book Health policy: an introduction to process and power will be the main text for this course, describes how five people sat around after lunch discussing the meaning of health policy and each had a different idea of what it would mean. Gill’s definition, and the one which we will be exploring in this course, is that "health policy is about process and power… it is concerned with who influences whom in the making of policy, and how that happens." It is concerned with political systems, power and influence, and the role of different groups of people in the process of policy making.
The first part of the course, then, will be devoted to a discussion of the policy process in general, and based on the book by Gill Walt. The second part of the course will look more specifically at several case studies which illustrate the issues which arise when international programs are implemented at national and local level – examples include the smallpox eradication program and the current efforts to eradicate polio. Students will then be asked to use the policy analysis methods from the course to analyze a policy issue of interest to them and to write a short paper on the issue.
This page was last updated on 11/09/01