How much do you know about health policy?

Overview of Health Policy

• Health policy refers to decisions, plans, and actions taken to achieve specific healthcare goals within a society.
• Health policy is critical in defining a vision for the future of healthcare, outlining priorities and the expected roles of different groups, and building consensus and informing people.
• Health policy can be categorized into many categories, including global health policy, public health policy, mental health policy, health care services policy, insurance policy, personal healthcare policy, pharmaceutical policy, and policies related to public health.
• Health policy also includes governance and implementation of health-related policy, sometimes referred to as health governance, health systems governance, or healthcare governance.
• Evidence-based policy relies on the use of science and rigorous studies such as randomized controlled trials to identify programs and practices capable of improving policy relevant outcomes.
• Healthcare is an important part of health systems and therefore it often accounts for one of the largest areas of spending for both governments and individuals all over the world.
• Personal healthcare policy options can be influenced by a human rights philosophy or by economics and healthcare financing.
• Medical research can be the basis for defining evidence-based health policy, and the subject of health policy itself, particularly in terms of its sources of funding.
• Workforce planning is distributed among labor market participants as a laissez-faire approach to health policy.
• Many governments and agencies include a health dimension in their foreign policy.
• Global health policy encompasses the global governance structures that create the policies underlying public health throughout the world.