Health Policy & Strategy

• Policy analysis in the twenty-first century: complexity, conflict and cases - The field called policy analysis focused originally on the formulation of new policies and was structured to give advice to those in the top reaches of government agencies. Within several decades the field moved beyond the formulation stage of the policy process (creating new policies) to agenda setting, implementation, and evaluation of existing policies. 

• Designing for Policy Effectiveness - The field of policy studies has always been interested in analyzing and improving the sets of policy tools adopted by governments to correct policy problems, and better understanding and improving processes of policy analysis and policy formulation in order to do so. Past studies have helped clarify the role of historical processes, policy capacities and design intentions in affecting policy formulation processes, and more recently in understanding how the bundling of multiple policy elements together to meet policy goals can be better understood and done.

• Does policy analysis matter? Exploring its effectiveness in theory and practice - How well can democratic decision making incorporate the knowledge and expertise generated by public policy analysts? This book examines the historical development of policy analysis, as well as its use in legislative and regulatory bodies and in the federal executive branch. The essays show that policy-analytic expertise effectively improves governmental services only when it complements democratic decision making. When successful, policy analysis fosters valuable new ideas, better use of evidence, and greater transparency in decision processes.

• Policy Analysis: Concepts and Practice - Often described as a public policy “bible,” Weimer and Vining remains the essential primer it ever was. Now in its sixth edition, Policy Analysis provides a strong conceptual foundation of the rationales for and the limitations to public policy. It offers practical advice about how to do policy analysis, but goes a bit deeper to demonstrate the application of advanced analytical techniques through the use of case studies.

• Public policy writing that matters - In Public Policy Writing That Matters, communications specialist David Chrisinger argues that public policy writing is most persuasive when it tells clear, concrete stories about people doing things. Combining helpful hints and cautionary tales with writing exercises and excerpts from sample policy documents, Chrisinger teaches readers to craft concise, story-driven pieces that exceed the stylistic requirements and limitations of traditional policy writing.

• Prevention, Policy, and Public Health - Prevention, Policy, and Public Health provides a basic foundation for students, professionals, and researchers to gain skills to be more effective in the policy arena. It offers information on the dynamics of the policymaking process, theoretical frameworks, analysis, and policy applications. It also describes shaping policies through advocacy and communication.

• Producing health policy: knowledge and knowing in government policy work - In this book Jo Maybin draws on rare access to the inner-workings of England's Department of Health to explore what kinds of knowledge civil servants use when developing policy, how they use it and why. 

• Writing Public Policy: A Practical Guide to Communicating in the Policy-Making Process - Catherine F. Smith presents a general method for planning, producing, accessing, and critically analyzing communications in a variety of real-life public policy contexts and situations.

• 8 steps to strategic success : unleashing the power of engagement - All organizations recognise the importance of strategy creation and execution: strategy is the process of developing the corporate future. Unfortunately, it often doesn't generate the required results. This book presents a new 8-step process for creating a strategy that really delivers. For each step, the book describes the key parts of the process, shows how to avoid the potential pitfalls, and points to the most useful strategic models and frameworks. 

• Dismantling Public Policy: Preferences, Strategies, and Effects - Policy dismantling is a distinctive form of policy change, which involves the cutting, reduction, diminution or complete removal of existing policies. The perceived need to dismantle existing policies normally acquires particular poignancy during periods of acute economic austerity. Dismantling is thought to be especially productive of political conflict, pitting those who benefit from the status quo against those who, for whatever reason, seek change. However, scholars of public policy have been rather slow to offer a comprehensive account of the precise conditions under which particular aspects of policy are dismantled, grounded in systematic empirical analysis.

• Health Promotion and the Policy Process - The book argues that focusing on how public policies work makes it possible to move beyond the more behavioural 'health education' approach, and make the transition from political statements to political strategies. The authors draw from a wide array of theories on the policy process in the fields of political science and political sociology to illuminate health promotion strategies and objectives. For example they discuss how Kingdon's Multiple Streams Model, Sabatier's Advocacy-Coalition Framework and policy network theories can contribute to greater health equity, healthy public policies and community development.

• Public policy in an uncertain world : analysis and decisions - Public policy advocates routinely assert that “research has shown” a particular policy to be desirable. But how reliable is the analysis in the research they invoke? And how does that analysis affect the way policy is made, on issues ranging from vaccination to minimum wage to FDA drug approval? Charles F. Manski argues here that current policy is based on untrustworthy analysis. By failing to account for uncertainty in an unpredictable world, policy analysis misleads policy makers with expressions of certitude. Public Policy in an Uncertain World critiques the status quo and offers an innovation to improve how policy research is conducted and how policy makers use research.

• Beyond evidence based policy in public health -  This book explores the complex relationship between public health research and policy, employing tobacco control and health inequalities in the UK as contrasting case studies. It argues that focusing on research-informed ideas usefully draws attention to the centrality of values, politics and advocacy for public health debates.

• Demystifying strategy : how to become a strategic thinker - Demystifying Strategy provides you with not only the basic strategic tools and techniques but also a thorough understanding of the entire process of strategic thinking and management. Using tips, guidelines and exercises it helps you to assess your own strategic mind and covers key topics such as: the different perspectives on strategy, economic analysis, dynamic competitive positioning, designing and evaluating options, implementation, managing the strategy process and how to nurture your strategic mind.

• Evidence-Based Policy – A Practical Guide to Doing It Better - Over the last twenty or so years, it has become standard to require policy makers to base their recommendations on evidence. That is now uncontroversial to the point of triviality--of course, policy should be based on the facts. But are the methods that policy makers rely on to gather and analyze evidence the right ones? In Evidence-Based Policy, Nancy Cartwright, an eminent scholar, and Jeremy Hardie, explain that the dominant methods which are in use now--broadly speaking, methods that imitate standard practices in medicine like randomized control trials--do not work. They fail, Cartwright and Hardie contend, because they do not enhance our ability to predict if policies will be effective.

• Public Policy in New Zealand: Institutions, Processes and Outcomes - Public Policy in New Zealand is also about the system of government in which policy is shaped. The book’s main purpose is to explain in a straightforward manner what the institutions of government are, and how they interact with citizens and interest groups to produce public policy. In short, this is a book about government and governance. 

• Your Strategy Needs a Strategy - What approach does your company use to develop and execute its strategy? In Your Strategy Needs a Strategy,  Martin Reeves, Knut Haanæs, and Janmejaya Sinha offer a proven method to determine the strategy approach that is best for your company. They start by helping you assess your business environment: how unpredictable it is, how much power you have to change it, and how harsh it is—a critical component of getting strategy right.

New Zealand

• Process, pitfalls and profits: Lessons from interviewing New Zealand policy-makers (2018) - Little has been written about interviewing policy-makers in health promotion and public health research. This article, published in Health Promotion International, explores the process, pitfalls and profits of semi-structured interviews with policy-makers in 10 research projects conducted in New Zealand. 

• Treaty of Waitangi in New Zealand public health strategies and plans 2006–2016 (2018) - This study, published in the New Zealand Medical Journal, examines how public health policy in New Zealand has represented the Treaty of Waitangi (the English version) and te Tiriti o Waitangi (the Māori text) between 2006 to 2016.

• An inconvenient truth: why evidence-based policies on obesity are failing Māori, Pasifika and the Anglo working class (2017) - Public health initiatives around obesity have generally worked well for middle class Australians and New Zealanders. This message has not had the same impact in Anglo working class areas and certain CALD communities, especially Māori and Pasifika, where obesity rates remain highest. This paper, published in  Kotuitui, employs qualitative data from interviews with eighty-five Māori and Pasifika migrants to Australia to explore attitudes to food purchasing and consumption behaviours and associated health risks. It is evident the individual, medicalised approach to improving obesity rates has not been effective and there needs to be a new culturally responsive structural approach. 

International

• What leads government officials to use impact evidence? (2021)  - Although the amount of policy-relevant academic research has grown in recent years, studies still find that policy practitioners seldom employ such research in their decision making. This study, published in the Journal of Public Policy, considers potential methods for increasing government officials' use of academic studies (impact evidence).

• Horizon Scanning in Foresight – Why Horizon Scanning is only a part of the game (2020) - This paper, published in Futures and Foresight Science, wants to shed light on some of the confusions in Foresight and Horizon Scanning (HS) that often occur in organizations, among researchers and practitioners being thus of practical and scientific relevance for using an integrated model.

• Ten ways to optimize evidence-based policy (2019) - This article, published in the Journal of Comparative Effectiveness Research, presents ten considerations for optimising evidence-based policy, drawn from experience in delivering applied behavior change research to government.

• Realizing the Promise of Research in Policymaking: Theoretical Guidance Grounded in Policymaker Perspectives (2019) - This article, published in the Journal of Family Theory and Review, explores growing pessimism among those scholars who wish to see rigorous research used more frequently to formulate public policy.

• The 'good governance' of evidence in health policy (2016) - Calls for evidence-based policy often fail to recognise the fundamentally political nature of policy making. Policy makers must identify, evaluate and utilise evidence to solve policy problems in the face of competing priorities and political agendas. Evidence should inform but cannot determine policy choices. This paper, published in Evidence and Policy, draws on theories of 'good governance' to develop a framework for analysing and evaluating processes of evidence-informed policy making.

• Evidence, policy, impact. WHO guide for evidence-informed decision-making (2021) - The importance of evidence-informed approaches, both in policy formulation and implementation, has long been recognized by the World Health Organization (WHO) and its Member States. With the General Programme of Work (GPW)13 and the creation of the Science Division, our Organization has reinforced its science- and evidence-based mandate. The COVID-19 pandemic additionally stressed the importance of the expeditious use of the best available scientific evidence to guide governments and practitioners in their emergency response. To achieve even better results in future, we need to further optimize our work across the evidence ecosystem and ensure that decision-makers are equipped to navigate a plethora of partially overlapping evidence and guidance of variable quality. 

• Horizon Scanning (2020) - A guide to Horizon Scanning from the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet.

• Building capacity for evidence-informed policy-making  Lessons from country experiences (2020) - This report analyses the skills and capacities governments need to strengthen evidence-informed policy-making (EIPM) and identifies a range of possible interventions that are available to foster greater uptake of evidence. Increasing governments’ capacity for evidence-informed is a critical part of good public governance. However, an effective connection between the supply and the demand for evidence in the policy-making process remains elusive.

• Making sense of evidence: A guide to using evidence in policy (2018) - The handbook helps you take a structured approach to using evidence at every stage of the policy and programme development cycle.

• Wellbeing Economy Policy Design Guide: How to design economic policies that put the wellbeing of people and the planet first (2017) - This guide has been co-created by the Wellbeing Economy Alliance (WEAll) to support visionary policy makers, like you, to build more just and sustainable economies for people and planet.

• The Futures Toolkit – Tools for Futures Thinking and Foresight Across UK Government (2017) - The Government Office for Science (GO-Science) ensures that government policies and decisions are informed by the best scientific evidence and strategic long term thinking. The Futures Toolkit is a key resource that policy professionals can use to embed long term strategic thinking in the policy and strategy process.

• Strategizing national health in the 21st century: a handbook (2016) - This handbook is designed as a resource for providing up-to-date and practical guidance on national health planning and strategizing for health. It establishes a set of best practices to support strategic plans for health and represents the wealth of experience accumulated by WHO on national health policies, strategies and plans (NHPSPs).

• Principles of Evidence-Based Policymaking (2016) - This brief describes four principles of evidence-based policymaking that policymakers, agency heads, and other public leaders can use to improve results in the public sector. These principles represent the consensus of researchers and practitioners from different backgrounds who are interested in improving how policy decisions are made and how programs are managed. Our democratic process sets goals for policies and programs, and evidence-based policymaking is an important tool to help achieve those goals.

• Strengthening Health System Governance: Better policies, stronger performance (2016) - Health is a political choice, and both good health governance and good governance for health require governments to continuously make important and sometimes difficult choices, choices that may have consequences on access to health services, the quality of health care and on financial hardship for those using the services.

• The role of evidence in policy formation and implementation (2013) - At the request of the Prime Minister, this report has been designed to explore in greater detail the issues that were brought to light in an earlier discussion paper, Towards better use of evidence in policy formation (2011). This paper extends that discussion and makes some specific suggestions as to how to improve the use of robust evidence in policy formation and evaluation.

If you would like to dig deeper into a particular topic, the resources below can be a great place to start. The library is also happy to do a tailored search on a specific topic of interest. You can reach out by emailing library@health.govt.nz

Journals

• Australian health review  - Australian Health Review is an international, peer-reviewed journal that publishes contributions on all aspects of health policy, management and governance; healthcare delivery systems; workforce; health financing; and other matters of interest to those working in health care.

• Evidence & policy - Evidence & Policy is the first peer-reviewed journal dedicated to comprehensive and critical assessment of the relationship between researchers and the evidence they produce and the concerns of policy makers and practitioners.

• Health affairs- The journal reaches a broad audience that includes: government and health industry leaders; health care advocates; scholars of health, health care and health policy; and others concerned with health and health care issues in the United States and worldwide.

• Health policy  - Health Policy is intended to be a vehicle for the exploration and discussion of health policy and health system issues and is aimed in particular at enhancing communication between health policy and system researchers, legislators, decision-makers and professionals concerned with developing, implementing, and analysing health policy, health systems and health care reforms, primarily in high-income countries outside the U.S.A.

• Healthcare policy- For health system policy makers, decision makers, academics and students. Authors come from a broad range of disciplines including healthcare, social sciences, humanities, ethics, law, management sciences, and knowledge translation. 

• Healthcare quarterly - Best practices, policy and innovations in the administration of healthcare. For administrators, insurers, suppliers, and policy pundits. 

• HealthcarePapers - Review of new models in Healthcare. Bridging the gap between the world of academia and the world of healthcare management and policy. Authors explore the potential of new ideas. 

• The Milbank quarterly - The Milbank Quarterly is a multidisciplinary journal of population health and health policy. It presents original research, synthesis, policy analysis, and commentary from leading thinkers, policymakers, and practitioners. The Quarterly’s goal is to publish scholarly papers that illuminate and add new insights to our understanding of important policy issues involving health and health care.

• Policy quarterly - Policy Quarterly (PQ) is targeted at anyone interested in public issues, including public servants, politicians and their staff and a wide variety of professionals, as well as the general public. Its succinct articles and informal style are intended to make the journal accessible to busy non-specialist readers.

Databases and Repositories

• Medline - The United States National Library of Medicine's (NLM®) premier bibliographic database providing information from medicine, nursing, dentistry and allied health. 

• OECD iLibrary - The online library of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) featuring its books, papers and statistics and is the gateway to OECD’s analysis and data. The Ministry subscribes to the OECD: Social Issues/Migration/Health iLibrary.

• Scopus - The world’s largest abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature with smart tools that track, analyze and visualise research. Easy to use and comprehensive, Scopus is designed to quickly find the information researchers need.

• United Nations Digital Library - Includes material from all UN agencies. Search by topic, agency, type of document and date

• Te Puna Search - Books, reports and working papers from NZ, other jurisdictions, and inter-government bodies

• Analysis & Policy Observatory (APO) - Analysis & Policy Observatory is a not-for-profit open access repository or digital library, specialising in public policy grey literature, mainly from Australia and New Zealand, with some coverage of other countries.

• Index New Zealand -  A multidisciplinary index of articles about New Zealand and the South Pacific. It includes popular and scholarly journals in the arts, humanities and social sciences.

• NZResearch.org.nz - Comprehensive selection of NZ research papers. Includes research from universities, polytechnics, and research organisations.

• The Hub: NZ social science research - A repository of New Zealand social science research published by central government agencies since 2003. Currently hosts research from the Ministries of Social Development, Justice, Health and Education, and the Social Policy Evaluation and Research Unit (Superu).