factors that influence policy drivers in health and social care

In a further development, the Healthy Cities Project was launched with the specific aim of involving political decision-makers in building a strong lobby for public health at the local level. It helped clarify the types of actions needed: that individuals need to be provided with the supportive environment and economic resources to be able to lead healthy lives.

The Ottawa Conference on Health Promotion in 1986 championed the view that health promotion was central to achieving health goals internationally. Since then health target shave become a central feature of public health policy in developed countries.

WHO also identified the need for such targets at this time, but did not introduce them until 1984. The Lalonde Report and the United Kingdom Black Report recommended that targets be used, but the first explicitly stated health targets were set by the US in 1979. The idea of setting goals for health improvement also began in the 1970s.

These ideas were subsequently expressed in the WHO The Alma-Ata Declaration and were emphasised a year later by the US Surgeon General. The first authoritative policy statement that the important determinants of health lay outside health care was in the LaLonde Report from Canada.

“The importance of public health was slowly recognised over the period from 1970 to 2000 with the publication of several reports from different organisations. In the last 40 years many international organisations and key reports have shaped public health policy around the world, as detailed by Irvine et al (2006) in Box 1.īox 1: A review of major influences on current public health policy in developed countries in the second half of the 20th century. Equality, Equity and Policy: Global Influences on Health and Social Policyįor a few decades after the formation of the World Health Organisation (WHO) in 1948, developed countries tended to invest in health care services and paid relatively little attention to public health.

Factors that influence policy drivers in health and social care