CANADIAN Health Policy: Policy Brief

CANADIAN Health Policy: Policy Brief

The purpose of the policy brief is to convince the target audience of the urgency of the current problem and the need to adopt the preferred alternative or course of action outlined and therefore, serve as an impetus for action.

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The 4-page brief will be based upon the principles of policy analysis and composed of “main messages” for a relevant set of decision makers (e.g., Minister of Health; Hospital CEO).

In this assignment, you will choose a health issue and carry out a policy analysis to develop recommendations for a policy option to address the issue and an implementation plan. You should follow the approach of integrated policy analysis by:

• Frame the problem,
• Develop a set of value-criteria,
• Identify and analyze 2-3 alternative policy options for addressing the problem,
• Provide recommendations for one policy option,
• Provide recommendations for an implementation plan.

You can choose the health issue to write about as long as it relates specifically to CANADIAN HEALH POLICY ISSUE and must be a specific issue, not a general board overview of an issue (this assignment cannot be written about any policy/ issue pertaining to Cannabis/Marijuana or Opioid Drug Use/Overdoses) listed are some examples but you don’t have to choose from these: mental health in middle childhood, immigrant mental health or health literacy, urban or rural poverty in Canada, issues about caring for frail and elderly ( long term care), chronic disease management, rising costs of prescription drugs, patient waiting times in emergency departments, cancer care in Ontario,
For instance, a problem could be related to the abuse of opioid pain killer medications (e.g., OxyContin). The value-criteria may be: a) ensuring effective pain management is available, b) addressing the needs of those with substance use problems, and c) efficiency in controlling access to regulated substances that are addictive.  You may identify policy options such as: 1) The use of an electronic prescribing system to strictly control and monitor access to generic versions of opioid, or 2) Disallow prescribing of generic formulations in favour of tamper-resistant formulations. You would then analyse how each of these options achieves the value-criteria that you’ve established in order to make your recommendations.

You should take a rational approach in analysing your alternatives; you should rely on data to analyse the alternatives (e.g., research on risks vs numbers who might benefit; reductions in rates of substance use following implementation of tamper resistant medications, etc.). You can also include perspectives from advocacy groups and stakeholder groups that may have reported qualitative perspectives towards the issue. You should also consider whether you need to apply a special lens to the analysis, describing how your analysis includes this lens. You will be required to include a minimum of 6 references from peer-reviewed journals. You may also include references from other credible sources such as “white papers” or reports from government or other credible websites (e.g., health policy think tanks).
Your brief should include the following sections:

1. Title page (not counted in the 4-page maximum). (5 Marks)

Please include a title page with the title, your name, student ID, and date. Also include the number of words in your document (excluding the briefing note, references, and tables). The title aims to catch the attention of the reader and compel him/her to read on and so needs to be descriptive, punchy and relevant. Finally, include a brief note explaining your target audience for the brief.

2. Executive summary (not counted in the 4-page maximum; 10 Marks)

Include your title above the executive summary. The executive summary aims to convince the reader further that the brief is worth in depth investigation. It is especially important for an audience that is short of time to clearly see the relevance and importance of the brief in reading the summary. As such, a 1 to 2 paragraph executive summary commonly includes:

• A description of the problem addressed;
• A statement on why the current approach/policy option needs to be changed;
• Your recommendations for action.

3. Context and Problem Identification (15 Marks)

The purpose of this element of the brief is to convince the target audience that a current and urgent problem exists which requires them to take action. The context and importance of the problem is both the introductory and first building block of the brief. As such, it usually includes the following:

• START WITH A CLEAR PROBLEM statement of the problem or issue in focus.
• A short overview of the magnitude and root causes of the problem
• An argument illustrating why and how the current or proposed approach is failing
• A clear statement of the policy implications of the problem that clearly establishes the current importance and policy relevance of the issue.

4. Analysis of Policy Option(s) (20 Marks)

The aim of this element is to detail the policy options being considered (this could include keeping the “status quo” if a current policy exists), illustrate how each option might address certain criteria you’ve established that would address the problem, and an outline focusing on where change needs to occur. In doing so, the critique of policy options usually includes the following:

• A short overview of the policy option(s) in focus
• A brief description of how the policy options may or may not achieve the criteria you’ve established.

This section will require you to do some background work to set-up your value criteria and identify potential policy options, similar to the Formulation stage of policy making. You will analyze how the options might or might not achieve these criteria. In your final product, you will not separately state your criteria and technical work to analyze the options. Instead, your criteria should become apparent to the reader in your overview of the different options. For instance, rather than listing your criteria (e.g., effectiveness in terms of X% reduction of a disease) and explaining that you summarized findings from 4 studies to estimate the effectiveness of policy X, simply state something like:

“Policy X can be projected to have a 10% reduction in problem Y. The key to this reduction might be implementation of a policy province wide using incremental approaches……..etc.” 

You would then cite this statement with your source references and, if you choose, include any calculations you made in an appendix.

5. Policy Recommendations (15 Marks)

The aim of the policy recommendations element is to provide a detailed and convincing proposal of how the failings of the current policy approach need to change. As such this is achieved by including;

• A breakdown of the specific practical steps or measures that need to be implemented
• Sometimes also includes a closing paragraph reemphasizing the importance of action.

6. Sources Consulted and Recommended Reading (5 Marks)

Many writers of the policy brief decide not to include any sourcing of their evidence, as their focus is not on an academic audience (A REFERENCE LIST IS MANDATORY FOR THIS ASSIGNMENT AND SHOULD BE INCLUDED AS A SEPARATE SECTION). However, it is useful to include a brief list of “further reading” for the intended audience in case they want to read more about the topic discussed. This can be placed at the end, as a call-out box, or wherever you see fit. It will be included in the page limit so choose sources judiciously.

9. References. (5 Marks)

List any references or source material you used to write your policy brief. This should be a separate page and will not count towards your page limit.

8. Appendices

Although the brief is a short and targeted document, authors sometimes decide that their argument needs further support and so include an appendix. Appendices should be included only when absolutely necessary. In this case, you can include any background work that you might have to done (e.g., calculations) to analyze criteria for different policy options. Be sure to include an indication in your text that further information can be found in the appendix.  THE APPENDIX WILL NOT CONTRIBUTE TO THE PAGE COUNT AND WILL NOT BE MARKED. However, it will contribute to the credibility of your work.

FORMATTING (25 marks)

Page limit: 4 pages for main body (sections 3-6 above).  1 title page, executive summary, references, appendix are extra.

Font: 12-point Times New Roman, Single Spaced, 1-inch page margins

Graphics: Figures of numbers, tables, other graphics are allowed and encouraged where useful.

• Note that the writing style of the analysis is a critical component of this assignment. Please ensure that your writing is as concise and direct as possible.
• You do not need to conduct a comprehensive review of all the available evidence on their policy. However, you should try to identify the most relevant published literature (including systematic reviews) and other appropriate sources.

Here is a list of useful steps you should consider when you approach the task of writing your policy brief:

1. Issue: examine the issue you will be dealing with. Answer these questions: Is the issue general or specific? How general/specific? Who is the target interest group affected by this issue (e.g., children, homeless, mentally ill, physicians, etc.)? What is the magnitude of the issue? What will happen if nothing is done?
2. Audience: take your primary audience into serious consideration. Your brief should be tailored to the needs of your audience. It makes a fundamental difference for how you must frame your analysis and your recommendation. Is your audience an individual (i.e. Prime Minister) or an organization (i.e. the Government as a whole)? Also, your audience tells you how much context is needed in the brief (i.e.: if you are briefing a Hospital C.E.O., you don’t need to explain him/her what the role of a hospital is).
3. Actors: identify the relevant actors for the issue you are dealing with. This is an essential step, since you will have to analyze their interests in order to make sensible and viable policy recommendations. Identifying the relevant actors is also essential to produce a good assessment of the context and of the interests that are plug into the issue (see below).
4. Interests: once you have identified the relevant actors, it is necessary to analyze their interests. What are the actors’ interests? Which of the relevant actors have similar interests to your audience? Which ones have different interests? How different? This step is important both for the context part of your brief and for the critique of policy options/policy recommendations. Without a clear identification of the actors involved in the issue and their interests, your brief will be vague, and therefore not useful.
5. Recommendations: your policy recommendations should reflect the above analysis. Remember that, according to the issue and the audience, your recommendation(s) might not suggest the best policy, but instead the most viable one. This should not limit your recommendation to just compromise policies. If you want to recommend radical change, you can; remember though that such radical action has to be implemented in some ways.
6. How-To: the last step is to suggest your audience the way to implement the policy. This last step outlines to your audience the persons/groups needed to be involved and the key steps in considering implementation (consider the approaches discussed in Chapter 5).

PLEASE NOTE THAT A DETAILED TUTORIAL FOR WRITING POLICY BRIEFS HAS BEEN PROVIDED BELOW

http://www.jhsph.edu/research/centers-and-institutes/womens-and-childrens-health-policy-center/de/policy_brief/index.html