Health Sciences 3400A/B Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Disease Surveillance, Occupational Safety And Health, Unintended Consequences
20 Oct 2017
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Lecture 8 Notes – Issue Identification & Policy Development
Objective
• Understand where issues come from and how risks are characterized and analyzed
• Understand the content-related and process-related tasks involved in identifying
issues
• Be able to list the different types of interventions
• Be able to explain how to assess and chose an intervention
Situating Issue Identification & Policy Development
• Issue Identification
• Agenda Setting
• Policy Design/Development
• Implementation
• Evaluation and Monitoring
Identify the issue: Risk vs. Hazard
• Policy is usually introduced as the response to a risk/hazard
• Hazard: something that can cause harm
o Can be a disease, electricity box etc.
• Risk: the chance (high or low) that any hazard will cause harm
o Attempt at quantifying the risk associated with a specific term
• When identifying issues related to health policy, its more than just knowing what
the issue is you need to contextualize the issue
Identify the Issue: Content-Related (content of issue)
• Proactive vs. Reactive
• Where do issues come from?
o Toxicology studies, epidemiological studies, environmental monitoring,
biological monitoring (mercury in blood), product surveillance, disease
surveillance, investigation of disease outbreaks…
o Ideally you get this information from multiple sources, but it is generally case
specific
• Characterize the
o Risk
▪ What is the underlying agent?
▪ What are the adverse health consequences?
▪ Who are the susceptible populations?
▪ How does the exposure occur?
▪ Are there scientific uncertainties?
• Answer will almost always be yes, but it is important to
identify them
▪ What are public perceptions?
o Hazard (individual level)
▪ What are the health consequences?
▪ How quickly will they be experienced?
▪ What populations will be exposed? Are some more susceptible?
o Exposure
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Lecture 8 notes issue identification & policy development. Issue identification: agenda setting, policy design/development, evaluation and monitoring. How frequent: put the issue into context, narrow vs. broad, broader context = more time and resources can be used, factors, similar sources of the same agent, ex. Find it in the soil and the air: other routes of exposure, ex. Can you be exposed through breathing it in or through the skin: agents from the same source, ex. Not only lead, but also mercury in water: collective impact of exposure to similar agents. Identify goals: general: ensure appropriate level of health protection. Identify the issue: process-related (more administrative in nature: allocate resources, not just human but also monetary/infrastructure. Identify roles, responsibilities and accountabilities: prepare an action plan & documentation process, risk information library includes information regarding the action plan, how resources were allocated and any results that you may have found.
