Analysing policies: using the policy triangle framework 

That’s great to hear, thanks for the comment appreciated.

Hi, before you can analyse a policy you need to be able to understand and describe it. See, ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-xYu4LqZzkeA.htmlsi=DcHj1CXrrreyYi4r once you can summarise the key elements of it you can then start finding materials to analyse things like content of the policy, the wider context in which it was developed, why are/were a specific set of origanisations/individuals involved, why was the process of policy making the way it was (this is hard as often not much public info on this). The analysis using the policy triangle means looking for articles, reports and books that critique, analyse, review the specific policy you are analysing yourself. From there you get your own ideas. You can also find research evidence of whether the specific individual parts are effective. Google search - critique analysis review of, history or trends in country X policy e.g critique of UK housing policy, analysis of England obesity policy, history of US HIV policy and so on.

Thanks, yes I used to teach it but it’s a counterfactual model in that we used to develop policy based on assuming that people are highly intelligent people who understand all the consequences of a policy and will not make decisions based on political and personal world views that they believe strongly in even when the evidence is against them. Over time it’s clear that we are not rational actors but influenced by a range of individual, community and societal norms and perspectives including religious beliefs and short term factors e.g. poor people are lazy, I am successful because of me and both are nothing to do with the society I live and the family I was born into through no choice of my own. Hence the lecture focuses on models like Kingdon that are more useful in understanding how policy actually happens and how people actually act - both rational and emotional - rather than what we hope people will act like.

Sorry for not responding sooner, I recommend using a general approach to policy analysis, if you are analysing an existing policy developed by other people then the Policy Analysis Triangle is my recommended approach. If you are looking at as a policy-maker and thinking about what analytical model to use to develop a policy then Eugene Bardach's Model is a good one. See ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-xblEd00hNsI.html and ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-TU9e82eN_Ro.html

Hi, that is a different type of analysis, think about what kinds of diseases/health problems mothers and children have compared to adults (men and women), look at the World Health Organization website which has some nice fact sheets on various topics - maternal and child health e.g. www.who.int/health-topics/maternal-health Think about the top 5-10 conditions for mothers and 5-10 for children, under 5s have different issues to older children and adolescents.

Thanks for the comment appreciated.

Hi Stuart, You start by looking looking at the 'Contents' as that's the easiest to do, you identify the aim, objectives, key principles and key interventions/actions set out in the policy. You then analyse/evaluate these in terms of how they relate to public health principles and values. For example is/are the aim/objectives focused on individual level behaviour change (i.e. That individuals are responsible for their own health) or does it (also) focus on structural societal factors like poverty, discrimination, lack of educational and economic opportunities, poor access to services and so on. This comes from close reading of the policy itself. Then you move on to 'Context', what were the social, cultural, economic and environmental factors that created the need for the policy (or revising/updating) the policy. This comes from finding critiques and analyses of the policy and searching for historical overviews of the policy e.g. critique/analysis/evaluation of X policy in Y country, using those three words separately and together. These are often journal articles and sometimes they are reports. You also need to a analyse how and why the content of the policy has changed over the last 20 years. This will help to identify the contextual factors. Then you look at 'Actors', which ar the key groups that have a interest/stake in the policy. In a previous video lecture, I identify 7 general types - international agencies e.g. WHO, national and local government, business, NGOs, research organisations e.g. universities, institutes, think tanks., and communities/general public. you need to work out what the specific ones are for your policy. Not all actors are directly involved in developing the policy but often in some way they have influenced it. Sometimes they are mentioned either in the final policy or in consultation documents relating to a draft of the policy before it was finalised. In UK, green papers are consultative documents and white papers are the final policy the government sends to parliament for members of Parliament to vote one. Last an hardest is the 'Process'. It is often difficult to find out about the process directly, Often it is through searching for researchers who have done the research and written a report or more likely a journal article discussing the policy process, e.g. policy process for development of X policy in Y country.

Thank you so much for this fast and so useful answer, I’m truly grateful!

Hi, Thanks for the feedback and question. Can you clarify what you mean by doing a health policy study? And what area of policy are you doing the study on?

Thank you for your return. I want to work on lean management in health institutions. I have read a study before and I will give the information of the study below. I would like to study lean management with the Scoping systematic review method used in this study. Is there a video on your channel about this method? I think it will help the work I will do. (Qudsiah, S., Kang, C. Y., Fatimah, A. F., Zamzaireen, Z. A., Natalia, C. I., Mohamad Fadli, K., ... & Juni, M. H. (2017). Methodological approaches of health policy analysis in developing countries. International Journal of Public Health and Clinical Sciences, 4(2), 19-36.)

Sorry for not understanding, you have 3 things in your answer, that need more clarification. Policy analysis is either analysing existing policies on for example alcohol, drug, smoking, nutrition, obesity, housing, and so on. It can also mean the process of developing a new policy agenda setting/problem identification, identifying policy options to solve the problem, and so on. I don't think there are any policies on lean management in healthcare institutions. So, I think you want to do a literature review not a policy analysis. A literature review on lean management in health institutions needs to have a clear question. Are you looking at, for example, how widespread is the use of lean management in healthcare institutions e.g. hospital; or how effective is lean management in healthcare institutions in delivery high quality services. Are you looking to do something like this: Mahmoud, Z., Angelé-Halgand, N., Churruca, K. et al. The impact of lean management on frontline healthcare professionals: a scoping review of the literature. BMC Health Serv Res 21, 383 (2021). doi.org/10.1186/s12913-021-06344-0 bmchealthservres.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12913-021-06344-0

Sorry for not responding sooner. No I don't. I'm happy to look at creating live RU-vid sessions where we can discussion as a public health learning community on RU-vid.

If you have time, appreciate anything you can tell me about what was good, what you liked content wise, and what aspects you would have liked covered. I will add those in next time I update the video.

Thank you Amanda, if you have time, can I ask you what you found helpful, are you studying public health or is it just the topic of analysing policies in general that's useful? Salim

Appreciate your comments, thank you.

Sorry for not replying sooner, yes you got it right you look at the different stakeholders (actors), events and issues that emerged and try and link them to the three streams, for example the problem stream could link to stories in the media e.g. Marcus Rashford raising the issue of free school meals for kids in lockdown and how that then intersected with the political stream and made an impact because the solution was also set out which was getting a company to provide it. Though this solution turned out to be expensive and nutritionally poor, so it would have been better to have given them a supermarket voucher and directly done this via supermarkets than a catering company.

Hi, To answer your second question first, yes you do write it as a paragraph/s. Though alongside the paragraphs, you could create a table based on the checklist with 1-2 word answers in it to visually show your findings on page.

What checklist are you using? Checklist are often a set of questions which you find answers for and then write up as a paragraphs.

@@ScienceandArtofPublicHealth I have an assignment and the guidelines which says develop a checklist and the use that checklist to analyze a policy. Thank you for the second answer🙏🏾

@@tebogothema4947 Interesting, my sense from what you say is that they want you to create a checklist of key questions that are useful when analysing a policy, what do you think are key questions based on your course? For example what is the aim/vision and objective so the policy, which is the policy important, what issues does try and deal with, what actions/interventions are being recommended, what evidence is there that these are likely to be effective (work). Who are the key stakeholders affected and/or involved in the development and implementation of the policy. Essentially, you can go the key slides in the video and create 1-2 question from each and create part of your checklist. Hope this helps.

@@ScienceandArtofPublicHealth we have another example that we used in our activity for a checklist that has keywords found in the policy, for example, Name of the policy, policy implementation, policy statement, etc. I agree with your answer because I also thought about the questions too.