BY LIDIYAMOL.P.

 Policy encompasses the authoritative guidelines that direct

human behaviour towards specific goals, in either the private or public sector. It includes a broad range of activities through which authority figures make decisions directed toward a goal and levy sanctions that affect the conduct of affairs. Such courses of actions may be termed policy proposals, options or alternatives. (Anderson, 1997).

 1. HEALTH POLICY:

Health policy refers to public and private policies

directly related to health care service delivery and reimbursement 2. NATIONAL HEALTH POLICY National health policy is an expression of goals for improving the health situations, the priorities among these goals, and the main directions for attaining them.

CONTEXT

CONTENT

PROCESS

 All public policy definitions refers to policy made on

behalf of the public, developed or initiated by the government, and interpreted end implemented by the public and private bodies.

 Policy subsystem:-

a policy subsystem includes a network of elected or appointed officials, legislative subcommittees, and interested group representatives and individuals directly involved in shaping a particular policy. Stake holders: The term stakeholders is applied to actors that may be directly affected by its outcome, stakeholders are also relevant in private sector policy making, although they may not be as highly visible.

rational approach, incrementalism,

policy stream model , and

stage sequential model

It reflects the goals of an ideal world. policy makers define the problem; identify and rank social values in policy goals; examine each policy alternative for positive and negative consequences, costs, and benefits; compare and contrast these factors among all actions; select the policy that most closely achieves the policy goals,.

 Policy changes are most often made incrementally

with small changes in the margins as opposed to the

radical restructuring of infective

 It is based on Cohens march and oslens garbage can

model (1972). Which describes the process as a series of options floating around seeking a problem. Kingdom likens the situation to a soup that contains three streams of activity. Problem stream: Policy stream:Political stream:-

 a policy problem identified and placed on the policy

agenda, then a policy is developed, adopted, implemented, evaluated and terminated. the process is dynamical and cyclical with policy evaluation and oversight, to identify either a well functioning programme, or new problems, thereby restarting the cycle.

 1. Ministry of Health identified the need for policy

2. Ministry appointed a committee to review

environment in the health sector and recommended a policy frame after needful consultation. 3. The revised draft was presented to subsequent Joint Council of Health and Family Welfare to get the views of Health Ministers of the States and later to National Development Council to get the views of the State Chief Ministers and their concurrence. 4. The final draft was presented to the Cabinet for approval and adoption.

1. A greater awareness of

health problems and means to solve these by communities 2. Supply of safe drinking water and basic sanitation using technologies that the people can afford. 3. Reduction of existing imbalance in health services by concentrating on the rural health infrastructure.

4.Establishment of a dynamic health management information system to support health planning and health programme implementation. 5. Provision of legislative support for health programme protection and promotion.

6. Concerted actions to combat widespread malnutrition. 7. Research for alternative methods of health care delivery and low cost health technologies. 8. Greater co-ordination of different system of medicine.

 To attain the objectives of Health for All by 2000 AD

, The Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare formulated National Health Policy in 1983
NHP 1983 stressed the need for providing primary

health care with special emphasis on prevention, promotion and rehabilitation

 Suggested planned time bound attention to the

following i) Nutrition, prevention of Food Adulteration ii) Maintenance of quality of drugs iii) Water supply and sanitation iv) Environmental protection v) Immunisation programme vi) Maternal and child health services vii) School health programme and viii) Occupational health services.

 o Infant Mortality Rate below 60

o Maternal Mortality Rate below 200 o Net Reproduction Rate 1 o Crude Birth Rate 21 o Crude Death Rate 9.0

 It emphasizes the importance of Health for all by the

year 2000 AD through the universal provision of comprehensive primary health care services. The new health policy acknowledges the financial constraints of the states, inequality in access to the public health system for urban and rural areas and for vulnerable sections of society and it admits that public health infrastructure is far from being satisfactory (MoHFW2002b

 The recommendations for reform include

more decentralization and participation. The government urges the states to decentralize the implementation of public health programmes to local self-government institutions by 2005.

1. The need to establish comprehensive primary health care services within the reach of population even in the remotest areas of the country. 2.The need to view health and human development as vital component of overall integrated socioeconomic development. Decentralised system of health care delivery with maximum community and individual self reliance and participation. 3. To ensuring a more equitable access to health services across the social and geographical expanse of the country

4. To increase the aggregate public health investment through a substantially increased contribution by the Central Government 5. To strengthen the capacity of the public health administration at the State level to render effective service delivery 6. To enhance the contribution of the private sector in providing health services for the population group which can afford to pay for services 7. To rationalize use of drugs within the allopathic system; and to increase access to tried and tested systems of traditional medicine

 1. Eradication of Polio & Yaws by 2005

2. Elimination of Leprosy

by 2005 3. Elimination of Kala-azar by 2010 4. Elimination of lymphatic Filariasis by 2015 5. Achieve of Zero level growth of HIV/AIDS by 2007

 6. Reduction of mortality by 50%

2010 ( on account of Tuberculosis, Malaria, Other vector and water borne Diseases) 7. Reduce prevalence of blindness to 0.5% BY 2010.
8.Reduction of IMR to 30/1000 &

MMR to 100/lakh BY

2010

9. Increase utilisation of public health facilities from current level of <20% to > 75% by 2010 10. Establishment of an integrated system of surveillance, by 2007 11.Increase health expenditure by government as a % of GDP from the existing 0.9% to 2.0% by 2010 12. Increase share of Central grants to constitute at least 25% of total health spending by 2010

 POPULATION POLICY is an effort to affect

the size, structure and distribution or characteristics of the population. Any public policy including population policy, is a step towards the future and an attempt to achieve desired goal

1. The ante natal policy, which aims at discouraging the growth of the population. 2. The distributional policy, which deals with the distributional imbalance of the population.