Public Policy Assignment Help
Introduction:
Policy is basically a rule or a plan for guiding decisions and achievement of rational conclusions. Public policy is a set of rules and actions that government take for the welfare of public. It declares government’s objective regarding the issues related to the health, morals, and welfare of citizens. Public policy is the result of the collective action of government. Public policy describes the concern of the government regarding a particular problem and the actions taken it take to solve those problems. There are several types of public policies and these are: substantive, regulatory, distributive, redistributive, and capitalization (Burns, 2002).
Substantive public policies are concerned with the development of society and its general welfare. Regulatory policy is concerned with certain regulations like trade regulations, business, public utilities, safety measures, etc. distributive policies as the name suggest are formulated for specific segments of society like policies for area of good, health service policies, public welfare policies, etc. Redistributive policies are made to rearrange the policies that are concerned with social and economic changes. Capitalization policies are different from the other policies and are not concerned with public issue they are related to financial subsidies. To formulate a policy is a very critical concept. Public policy is a multi-stage process (Burns, 2002) .
Unlock the secrets to vitality with Assignmentstudio’s Guide to a Healthy Living, Healthy Lifestyle & Health Benefits. Discover expert insights and practical tips to cultivate wellness and reap the rewards of a balanced life.”
Public Policy Process
There are various stages of the policy process. The process is on-going.
Problem Recognition: This is the first step in public policy process. To formulate a policy it is very necessary to first identify a problem because the main objective of policy formation is to take corrective actions to solve a particular problem.
Agenda Setting: In this stage the list of issues and problems are described that are the main reasons to formulate the policy. A comprehensive description is provided. All the aspects of problems are analyzed and listed.
Policy Formulation: In this step several policies are made to provide solutions to the concerns that are already listed in the agenda.
Policy Adoption: After the policy has crafted it is also essential to adopt that policy. In this stage official party and government agreed upon the policy. After that policy is communicated through various processes of mass media to educate everyone about the policy (Marks, 2001).
Policy Budgeting: In this step government take decisions on the money spent on each policy every year.
Policy Implementation: The public policies that have already agreed upon by the government and other officials are put into action. Implementation of policies includes adoption of rules and regulations as per the policies.
Policy Evaluation: This is the last step in which the policies implemented are analyzed and evaluated. The evaluation is necessary to know whether those policies are accomplishing the purpose of their formulation or not?
Public policies are crafted to fulfill a purpose and provide proper solution to various issues or concerns related with public and after the evaluating the policies, provide necessary solution to the problem related to the policy. So, this stage ensures updating policies time-to-time.
Healthy Public policy:
Healthy public policy refers to the various policies enacted by various levels of government those are specifically concerned with the issues of health and equity, and by responsibility for health consequences. That means policies are not only concerned with health care or public services but the main are also concerned with the actions taken by government after reviewing those policies and the consequences of those actions on health (Nolan et al,2006). The main objectives of healthy public policies are: recognizing the value of health for the welfare of society, share responsibility to implement health policies, acknowledgement of the impact of several health policies on citizens’ health, closing the health gaps, and consult the citizens to connect policies to their social and personal life. Now, the main issue is how to analyze a healthy public policy. Policy analysis is an art (Burns, 2002). The main purpose of policy analysis is to evaluate the policy to see whether the issues or concerns for which the policy has crafted has solved or not. Analyzing a policy is very critical. Many techniques are used to analyze policies (Nolan et al,2006).
A sequence for Policy Analysis – Althaus et al
As we discussed above policy process needs certain steps and I have explained the steps as well. In the same way policy analysis is also a step wise process. Policy analysts take actions against problems in a sequential manner. There are certain stages involve in healthy policy analysis cycle and these are: Identification of the problem that requires policy Set out the goals and objectives of the policy, Identification of the decision parameters whether the decision or policy crafted is a good solution to the problems or not, then overall analysis of the policy that includes its analysis in economic, social, legal, technical, and environmental, then comes the phase of providing solution to the problems.
Health Option of WA
Health options WA is a food and nutrition policy for West Australia health services and facilities was introduce in January 2008 and amended in April 2009. The Healthy Options WA Food and Nutrition Policy for WA Health Services and Facilities has crafted to improve and maintain the health of society by helping health care organizations to support good nutrition and healthy eating alternatives (Nolan,2006). The policies includes guidelines related to diet for Adults, children and Adolescents in Australia and guidelines for healthy eating (Nolan et al,2006). The foods are classified as per the system of traffic light and this system has made for identification of healthy food. Green colour is used for the foods those are rich sources of nutrients and should consume daily and at every meal. Amber colour is used for the foods those posses some nutritional values. Red coloured food indicates the consumption of food with poor nutrition (National Preventative Health Taskforce, 2009).
Under the policy, all food and drink outlets needs to promote healthy food to the staff and other visitors and to do less promotion of unhealthy food.The main purpose of the policy is to provide prevention, treatment, rehabilitation and palliative services to people and the society. The policy includes hospitals, clinics, community health centres, policy services, administration services and various agencies that support in delivering health services (Nolan et al,2006) . The policy applies to all the services and to all food sources like food outlets, food and drink vending machines, cafes and coffee shops, kiosks, staff cafeterias, ward trolley services for patients. It also applies to various business those provide catering services, events and parties. This applies to all food items whether fresh or pre-packaged. But it does not apply to inpatients or aged care resident meals, staff social functions, and foods at home (Harrison et al, 2007).
There are many reasons or concerns behind the formulation of the policy like healthy nutrition is necessary for all age groups. Several health problems and chronic diseases had seen in Western part of Australia due to poor nutrition. These include type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, stroke, cancer and some musculoskeletal disorders, high blood cholesterol, hypertension and obesity (Harrison et al, 2007). According to some evidences people in Australia do not eat the key dietary food, like fruits, vegetable and cereals. Adults and children usually consume the products like soft drinks, fast foods and confectionary those are sugar and calorie rich products and this is the main reason of increasing weight, obesity and various other concerns related to health. This is the main reason that leads to formulation of Health options of Western Australia (National Preventative Health Taskforce, 2009) .
The main objectives of the policies within West Australian health options are to enhance the variety and availability of healthy food and drinks from various sources of food to 50%, high promotion of healthy food and less promotion of unhealthy food or food with poor nutrition value, reduction of unhealthy food offered by various food sources to 20% (Marks, 2001) .
The Healthy Options WA Food and Nutrition Policy for WA Health Services and Facilities is the evidence based policy that includes various scientific, strategic and policy decisions and documents to guide the development of the policy, investigations in West Australian (Marks, 2001). They are to increase healthy options, review or investigation of current classification of food and drink, development of a group who can review the key issues in relation regarding the implementation of the new policy, development of guidelines and criteria to classify food as per the nutrition percentage, development of various documents related to policy, plans and supporting resources for its implementation. These were the decisions that took into consideration during the development of health options (Harrison et al, 2007) .
Navigate the path to wellness with Assignmentstudio’s insights into the Importance of Proper Nutrition. Our thorough exploration reveals the critical role nutrition plays in supporting physical and mental health, guiding you towards a balanced and vibrant life.
