Healthy Public Policy Quiz

Healthy Public Policy

• Healthy Public Policy (HPP) is characterized by a focus on health and equity in all policy areas and an accountability for health impact. The goal is to create a supportive environment so people can lead healthy lives.
• HPP prioritizes enabling healthy choices, and making the social and physical environment conducive to health.
• Public authorities (municipal, provincial, federal) are involved in policy decisions and actions about public policies in Canada.
• Public policy can be a statement or strategic action designed to address situations or events affecting the population.
• Policy statements define problems impacting populations or groups within them.
• Strategic actions are performed by public authorities to address situations and events affecting the population.

Policy Formation (Ideal World)

• Five steps to a policy formation process that's optimal:
  • Identify the goals.
  • Draft alternative actions to pursue the goals
  • Predict and evaluate the consequences of each action.
  • Choose the course of action that best benefits goals
• The process is ideal because it assumes the policy developers are rational, autonomous decision-makers who work together to develop the best possible policy.

Policy Formation (Real World)

• Policy creation in real life is complex.
• Emotions and moral insights play a vital role in policy development.
• Policies need to be presented in a way that resonates with people.
• Society is not a collection of rational decision-makers, meaning individual behaviors and societal needs impact policy. Preferences are influenced by the way choices are presented.

How Do We Conceive of Policy?

• Policy is understood by examining three aspects:
  • Context: What is the situation? Why is this policy being considered?
  • Content: What is the proposed policy?
  • Process: How does the policy get created and implemented? Who are involved and what are the steps?

Policy Options

• Eliminate choice: Restricting the options to entirely eliminate choice.
• Restrict choice: Limits available options.
• Guide choice through disincentives: Disincentives such as financial pressures to discourage an activity.
• Guide choice through incentives: Offering financial or other incentives for certain choices to encourage action.
• Guide choice via default changes: Favoring particular choices in a default setting to influence behaviors.
• Enable Choice: Supporting opportunities for population behaviors to change.
• Provide information: Supplying information to enable informed choices
• Do nothing or Monitoring: No intervention; observe current situations.

How to Engage Stakeholders

• Stakeholders have varied interests and priorities.
• Effective engagement requires understanding and addressing these differences.
• Different stakeholder classifications exist and require differing engagement strategies.

Healthy Public Policy (Further Details)

• Policies need to consider health and social aspects in addition to economic considerations.
• Policymakers and sectors responsible for factors like agriculture, trade, education, and communication need to incorporate health into their considerations.

Origins - Ottawa Charter (1986)

• A key health promotion action is creating environments that encourage healthier choices.
• Enabling and simplifying healthy options is important.
• Policy-makers and organizations should emphasize health outcomes equally, alongside economic considerations.
• Building healthy public policy requires participation and collaboration, along with skill development.

Understanding Healthy Public Policy

• Health determinants extend beyond healthcare services, encompassing housing, income, and the environment.
• Public health policy transcends specific sectors, overlapping various domains such as education, transit, and urban planning.

Examples of Healthy Public Policy

• Bike helmets and seatbelt laws
• Fluoridated water
• Restrictions on smoking
• Regulations in the workplace
• Climate Change policies

Entry-to-Practice Competencies (Registered Nurses)

• Nurses advocate for clients, both those who can advocate for themselves, and those who cannot.
• Nurses advocate for optimal health outcomes for clients.
• Nurses clarify unclear orders, decisions, or treatments.
• Nurses actively support Indigenous healthcare practices; nurses advocate for equitable health for all, including vulnerable and diverse populations.

The Community Health Nurse and Policy

• Community health nurses have critical roles in advocating for healthy public policy and social justice.
• They participate in policy development and take action at different levels—from organizational to federal—to address health inequities and access issues.

Canadian Nurses Association (CNA) and Policy

• Decision-makers involve nurses due to their wide influence on health policies.
• Nurses provide evidence-based guidance and position statements to affect public health policy.

RNAO Policy and Political Action

• Nurses in Ontario advocate for policies and procedures to improve the health care system across all levels.
• The objective is to ensure comprehensive, universal health care for everyone.

RNAO Responses to Regulations

• RNAO has responded proactively to new regulations on supervised consumption sites for substance use, emphasizing the importance of evidence-based approaches to address the issue.
• This includes integrating supervised consumption services (SCS) sites into a continuum of comprehensive health and social services, alongside policy changes to improve public health safety.

Plain Packaging

• Plain packaging tobacco products can enhance public health.
• The objective is to reduce the appeal and marketability of tobacco products to consumers.
• Product packaging eliminates branding, making products virtually identical to each other.

Policy Interventions (Alcohol)

• A two-tiered strategy exists for addressing alcohol harm: Population-based and targeted interventions.

• Population-level interventions include effective alcohol pricing, controlled availability, and preventative marketing.

• Targeted interventions include laws to control drinking and driving, education about alcohol, and access to interventions to help reduce harmful alcohol behaviours.

Environmental Health

• Environmental health encompasses physical, chemical, and biological factors external to individuals.
• Environmental factors influence behavior and potentially affect health.
• Environmental health focuses on preventing disease by making environments more supportive and beneficial.

The Role of Nurses in Environmental Health

• Nurses assess and communicate environmental risks and hazards.
• They educate people about environmental health and provide leadership within environmental health practices.
• Nurses collaborate with different disciplines and advocate for policies that maintain environmental health and sustainability

CDC Climate & Health Program

• Climate change impacts human health.
• It causes extreme weather, migration, and other environmental changes.
• Diseases linked to climate-related issues will increase.

Nursing Role, Climate Change

• Nurses play crucial roles in reducing health issues related to climate change.
• Upstream policies support future generations, focusing on pollution reduction, resilience-building, and education.
• Downstream policies address climate adaptation, responses to disasters, and healthcare workforce readiness.
• These consequences have substantial economic and social implications, significantly impacting health expenditures.

CASN Climate Driven & Vector-Borne Disease Toolkit

• Provides resources and information related to climate change affecting vector-borne diseases.
• This includes an overview of the role of nurses in working with the environment and addressing climate change-related health issues.

Nurses and Climate Change Policy

• Nurses can promote leadership roles to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
• Associations need support in the reduction of greenhouse emissions.
• Nurses need to support policy and strategies to lessen global warming.
• Nurses should advocate for creating healthy, well-rounded communities, including initiatives that support environmental conservation

International Council of Nurses Position Statement

• Nurses are vital in addressing climate change through immediate actions to protect health and wellbeing.
• Nurses' role includes various activities such as building climate-resilient health systems, managing travel, developing climate-smart programmes, and building the health workforce’s capacity for climate-related activities.
• Nurses have an important role in protecting health and promoting social justice by addressing climate change adaption and mitigation.

Nursing Involvement

• Climate change already negatively impacts Ontario's health, requiring nursing involvement and advocacy.
• RNAO (registered nurses' association of Ontario) has advocated for the importance of considering climate change's health implications and promoting public understanding via programs like Make it better.
• Nurses should engage in policy and action related to climate change, including signing the pledge and participating in discussion to impact policies.