Lecture 4 (Sept 19) Effects/Implementation

Question 1

Policy alternatives and selections should always be

Answer 1

evidence based

Question 2

Public policy

Answer 2

a strategic action led by a public authority in order to limit or increase the presence of certain phenomena within the population

Question 3

Healthy public policy

Question 4

The five steps of making a public policy

Answer 4

Problem ID
Agenda Setting
Policy formulation
Policy legitimation
Policy implementation

Question 5

Before a policy decision is made… (or alternative is chosen) what should we do?

Answer 5

• Inform a decision maker/stakeholder about the relevance of adopting a particular public policy; bias-free, aim is to provide information
• Promote the adoption of a public policy; you are an advocate
• Compare public policies to inform the DM process

Question 6

To analyze an existing policy… what should we do?

Answer 6

• Evaluate!
• Determine whether or not the policy/program should be prolonged or identify weaknesses so they can be corrected
• Evaluation could focus on many components/aspects
• Effects/Implementation is an analytical framework that presents a range of possible evaluation questions
  -most relevant to the context at hand should be chosen

Question 7

A durable policy

Answer 7

seatbelts in cars

Question 8

A non durable policy

Answer 8

masks worn every day all the time

Question 9

Dimensions for analyzing durability of public policies

Answer 9

Effects and Implementation

Question 10

The three branches of effects

Answer 10

Effectiveness: what effects does the policy have on the targeted health problem?
Unintended effects: What are the unintended effects of this policy?
Equity: What are the effects of this policy on different groups?

Question 11

Three branches involved in Implementation

Answer 11

Cost
Feasibility
acceptability: Do the relevant stakeholders view the policy as acceptable

Question 12

Five different kind of effects

Answer 12

Effectiveness: achieving its objective (+ve or -ve); can be difficult due to time
Distal effects: long term
Immediate effects: deconstruct chain of events to identify relationships to problem (link to logic model - coming up in future weeks)
Unintended effects (+ve or -ve)
Equity: different effects on different groups

Question 13

Costs related to implementation:

Answer 13

actual , relative, hidden, opportunity; incurred by policy makers (eg government or other agencies)

Question 14

Feasibly

Answer 14

congruency, resource availability, pilot programs, other contextual conditions (eg administrative programs to facilitate), cooperation or interference.

Question 15

Acceptability

Answer 15

Do stakeholders think it will work as intended, how does it compare to alternatives, coercion, changing interpretations

Question 16

Epi curve (epidemiological curve)

Answer 16

A visual display of the onset of illness among cases associated with an outbreak. The horizontal x-axis is the date or time of illness onset among cases

Question 17

What’s a good way to know whether or not your policy is working?

Answer 17

epidemiological curve. Comparing new cases to previous cases