Public Health and Public Policies: similar but different fields

Oliveira, Vanessa Elias de

doi:10.1590/S0104-12902016172321

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Articles • Saude soc. 25 (4) • Oct-Dec 2016 • https://doi.org/10.1590/S0104-12902016172321 copy

Public Health and Public Policies: similar but different fields

Authorship SCIMAGO INSTITUTIONS RANKINGS

Abstract

This article deals with the issue of how studies on public policies can contribute to understand institutions, actors and processes related to public health policies. It is grounded on the fact that many studies tend to describe and/or analyze public health policies. However, few use the theoretical tools of public policy analysis, which is a broad field of knowledge already widespread in Brazil. In this regard, this paper aims to encourage the interdisciplinary debate between these fields - public health and public policy -, which are understood as conceptually and empirically complementary, but still distant from the national literature on public health. The article briefly reviews the “public policies cycle” literature and points out that it was insufficiently considered by national health policy studies. This was demonstrated through the analysis of articles published in the Saúde e Sociedade journal between 2005 and 2015 (627 articles were analyzed). The article ends with a discussion about the paths and challenges for a rapprochement between the two fields.

Keywords:
Public Policies; Public Health; Interdisciplinarity

Keywords	Number	% of the total published (627)	Uses PP bibliography	% with PP bibliography	% of the total published (627) with PP bibliography
Public policies	34	5,4	8	23,5	1,3
Health policy	28	4,5	6	21,4	1,0
Social participation / social control	22	3,5	11	50,0	1,8
Health management / health services	19	3,0	3	15,8	0,5
Total of the PP area	103	16,4	28	27,2	4,5

Actors	Description	Phases on which they work
Governmental	Senior government staff (president, governors, ministers and State secretaries, the Executive power senior management)	- Agenda setting
		- Policy formulation
		- Decision-making process (in some cases, depending on the Legislative Power work)
	Civil servants admitted through public contest	- Implementation
		- Evaluation
	Elected politicians	- Agenda setting
		- Policy formulation (through submission and passing of bills)
		- Decision-making process
		- Policy follow-up / evaluation (through Information Requirements, for example)
	Members of the Justice system (Judiciary power, Prosecutor’s Office and Police)	- Implementation (blocking illegal / unconstitutional laws or demanding the implementation of policies not enforced by the Executive power)
Non-governmental	Pressure groups	- Agenda setting⁹ 9 To Kingdon (1984 apud Howlett; Ramesh, 2003) more than by setting agendas, the pressure groups participate in the process of blocking undesirable proposals, playing little effective role in the agenda setting per se.
		- Policy monitoring (non-institutional evaluation)
	Academics, researchers	- Evaluation
		- Elaboration of alternatives (post-evaluation and pre-reformulation of the policy)
	Media	- Agenda setting (informing governments about problems)
		- Policy monitoring (non-institutional evaluation)
	Political parties and public opinion	- Agenda setting
		- Policy monitoring (non-institutional evaluation)

Faculdade de Saúde Pública, Universidade de São Paulo. Associação Paulista de Saúde Pública. Av. dr. Arnaldo, 715, Prédio da Biblioteca, 2º andar sala 2, 01246-904 São Paulo - SP - Brasil, Tel./Fax: +55 11 3061-7880 - São Paulo - SP - Brazil
E-mail: saudesoc@usp.br

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[TFN3] PP: Public Policies