Infant mortality is down, childhood immunization is steadily moving up, and prevention messages are more popular and widespread than ever. Yet, despite the progress, there are still many challenges that must be faced. And, as students, you will play a key role in how we as a nation shape health policies that answer the demands of the future. First you need a keen understanding of how policy is created and how critical choices get made. Getting from a to z is never writ in stone.
Many factors drive the creation of policy, and there are many routes to a desired end.
As always, the most important driving force is money. That s why most policy is set at the federal and state level, because these are the folks holding the purse strings. Emerging issues also shape policymaking. There was a public outcry for a policy to guide us, but no such policy existed. The traditional rules governing communicable diseases didn t apply because the issues surrounding this disease were so publicly explosive.