The role of health education in public policy development

Health educators should view policy development as a unit of professional practice analogous to the individual, the small group, the community, and the organization. The impact of policy on other units of practice and on people served by health educators is too great and the competition for scarce resources for health and human services is too keen to be disregarded. An increasingly active role in the policy process is, therefore, vital to the profession. Unfortunately, many health educators find an active role strange and lack guidelines for effective policy intervention. This paper attempts to mediate that situation. First a conceptual framework is offered. Operational definitions of important terms are given, including policy, public policy, social policy, health policy, and health education policy. A model of the policy development process is presented, detailing the purpose and dynamics of several steps: establishing problem awareness, setting goals and objectives, selecting a course of action, designing alternative courses of action, analyzing policy, assigning implementation responsibility, implementing, and evaluating. Then five categories of intervention strategies encompassing 16 individual suggested roles ranging from indirect influence to direct political involvement are presented. The categories are: acting as a source of policy information, providing technical assistance, organizing, influencing policymakers, and taking direct political action.