• header Image

Public Policies in health

Home/ Public Policies In Health
Course Type Course Code No. Of Credits
Discipline Core SPG2PH412 4

Semester and Year Offered: 3rd Semester, 2nd Year

Course Coordinator and Team: N. Nakkeeran & Samik Chowdhury

Email of course coordinator: nakkeeran@aud.ac.in

Pre-requisites: None

Aim:  ‘Public Policies in Health’ is a core area of public health as public health is a field that emphasises population level interventions and public policies are one of the principal instrument through which public health measures are implemented or intervened in modern state-bases societies. Public policy is also the arena through which measures for equity in access to health and health status is promised and ways to achieve equity too are, in principle, pronounced.

Course Outcomes:

  • To be able to read a policy document and to do a policy analysis
  • To be able to apply the skill of policy analysis to critically analyse and specific public health related or allied policies
  • To be familiar with selected public health and allied polices in India.

Brief description of modules/ Main modules:

Module 1: Introduction to public policy – meaning, forms/types, policy process, policy content and context; global influence on policy making

This module will introduce the meaning, and different types of public policies; including distinctions between different instruments of policy pronouncements. This module will further elaborate on approaches and concepts used in policy making and policy analysis; the relevance of understanding the content, context of policies and the nature of evidence for/in policy making. The context will include elaborations on political system, economic and social arrangements, stakeholders in policy making; diverse interest and advocacy groups in influencing the policy. Further, this module will focus on providing an understanding on global policy actors, institutions and efforts and the way they influence the health policy context of developing countries like India. This module concludes with a discussion on challenges in public health policy stemming from the processes through which policies are made, ambiguities between programmes and policies and the way programmes shapes policy making, centre-state relationship, machinery and systems available for monitoring and evaluation of policy implementation and assessing what aspects of policies gets taken forwarded and what get dropped.

Module 2: Health Policy Making in India – from colonial to the present

Historical evolution of health policies in India, starting with attempts at health related policy formulations in colonial period, through early post-independent period to the present. Reports of early Sanitary commissions, setting up of colonial period health systems and disease control acts in colonial period; important sanitation and health related committees including Sokhey committee, Environmental Hygiene Committee 1949, Health Survey & Development (Bhore) Committee, Mudaliar Committee, Primary Health care and Alma-Ata declaration; National Health Policies of 1983, 2002, 2017; Health Systems Reforms of 1990s, National Rural Health Mission; National Health Mission; High Level Expert Group on Universal health Coverage (2011); Current strategies for Universal Health Coverage.

While discussing these policies through history, the specific political and economic context and the nature of relationships between state, citizens, civil society, other non-state actors and public health, that correspondingly prevailed will be discussed to illuminate on ‘continuity’ and ‘change’ across these eras and to look into the nature of such influences of historical contexts on policy content and implementation, including the role of civil society, NGOs and the private sector in shaping the public health policies. The current policy making and implementing arena including the ministry, secretariats and directorate at the Union and the state levels as well as role of bodies like ICMR, MCI etc will be discussed here.

Module 3: Introduction to polices allied to health in India

In this module important public polies that are allied to health will be introduced. Introduction to national population polices (1976, 2000), National mental health policy (2014), national vaccine policy (2011); National Policy for Persons with Disabilities (2006), Policy on Palliative care; Policies on health manpower; Drug / pharmaceutical policies; policies on environmental health; urbanization and health. Key policy innovations tried at State levels such as Kerala’s palliative care  and Tamil Nadu’s drug procurement models will also be discussed in this module.

One or two key policies listed above will be taken up for detailed discussion as case studies and students will be encouraged to engage with other polices depending on their interest as part of assessments.

Assessment Details with weights:

  • A written assignment that will assess skills to read and critically analyse policy documents (30%)
  • A class presentation on specific policies (30%)
  • A class test (40%)

 

Reading List:

  • Buse, K., Mays, N., Walt, G., Making Health Policy, Open University Press, 2005
  • Lee, K., Fustukian, S., Buse, K., “An Introduction to Global Health Policy”, in Kelley Lee, et al (eds.) Health Policy in a Global World, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2002, pp. 3-17
  • Oliver TR., The politics of public health policy, Annu. Rev. Public Health 2006. 27:195–233 doi: 10.1146/annurev.publhealth.25.101802.123126
  • Rushton, S., and Williams, OW., (2012) Frames, Paradigms and Power: Global Health Policy-Making under Neoliberalism, Global Society, 26:2, 147-167
  • Walt, G., and Gilson, L., “Reforming the health sector in developing countries: the central role of policy analysis”, HEALTH POLICY AND PLANNING; 9(4): 353-370
  • Walt, G., Shiffman, J., Schneider, H., et al.,  “ ‘Doing’ health policy analysis: methodological and conceptual reflections and challenges”, Health Policy and Planning, 2008;23:308–317
  • Batilwala S., 1978. “The Historical Development of Health services in India”, FRHS: Bombay, Mimeo
  • Baru R., and Mohan M., “Globalisation and neoliberalism as structural drivers of health inequities”, Health Research Policy and Systems 2018, 16(Suppl 1):91 https://doi.org/10.1186/s12961-018-0365-2
  • Duggal, R. (2001). Evolution of health policy in India. Centre for Enquiry into Health and Allied Themes. Available at https://www.cehat.org/cehat/uploads/files/a147.pdf
  • Jobert, B. (1985). Populism and health policy: the case of community health volunteers in India. Social science & medicine, 20(1), 1-25.
  • Palekar, SA., Role of NGOs in policy-making in India, The Indian Journal of Political Science Vol. LXXIII, No. 1, Jan-March, 2012, pp. 21-28
  • Peters, D. H., Rao, K. S., & Fryatt, R. (2003). Lumping and splitting: the health policy agenda in India. Health policy and planning, 18(3), 249-260.
  • Qadeer I. Universal health care in India: Panacea for whom?. Indian J Public Health 2013;57:225-30.
  • High Level Expert Group Report on Universal Health Coverage for India, 2011, https://niti.gov.in/planningcommission.gov.in/docs/reports/genrep/rep_uhc0812.pdf
  • India, Government of, National Health Policy – 2017, MOHFW, New Delhi. https://www.nhp.gov.in/nhpfiles/national_health_policy_2017.pdf
  • India, Government of, National Health Policy 2002 (India), https://nhm.gov.in/images/pdf/guidelines/nrhm-guidelines/national_nealth_policy_2002.pdf
  • India, Government of, National Health Policy, New Delhi, Lok Sabha Secretariat, 1983
  • Gupta S. and Sagar R. National Mental Health Policy, India (2014): Where Have We Reached? Indian J Psychol Med. 2021;XX:1–7.
  • Jain, D., and Rao, M., National Population Policy 2000: Re-examining Critical Issues, 36(16), 21 Apr, 2001, https://www.epw.in/journal/2001/16/commentary/national-population-policy-2000-re-examining-critical-issues.html
  • Lalitha, N., Tamil Nadu Government Intervention and Prices of Medicines, Vol. 43, Issue No. 01, 05 Jan, 2008, https://www.epw.in/journal/2008/01/notes/tamil-nadu-governmentintervention-intervention-and-prices-medicines.html
  • Rao M, Rao KD, Kumar AS, Chatterjee M, Sundararaman T. “India: Towards Universal Health Coverage 5 Human resources for health in India”, The Lancet. 2011;377:587–98
  • Selvaraj S., et al., “Pharmaceutical Pricing Policy: A Critique”  EPW, january 28, 2012 vol xlvii no 4, pp.20-23

 

Top