Health Policy Advocacy

Purpose:

To develop a plan describing how health professionals could advocate for a state or national health policy of the student’s choosing. The paper will focus on any one of the following health issues: health promotion, illness reduction, patient safety, or workplace safety.

Directions:

Select a specific health policy in which you are interested and which is of significance to the health care profession. The policy should focus on one of the following health issues: health promotion, illness reduction, patient safety, or workplace safety. The health policy is one at the state or national level or one that a health care organization has developed. Be careful, for the purposes of this assignment, a health policy is not legislation.

Write a minimum of six full pages to a maximum of eight pages of text regarding this health policy using the grading criteria below. Beyond the text, the paper should include a cover page, abstract with keywords, and reference list.

There are no rewrites or resubmissions permitted on the health policy paper. 

Health Policy Defined:

Health policy refers to decisions, plans, and actions that are undertaken to achieve specific health care goals within a society. An explicit health policy can achieve several things: it defines a vision for the future which in turn helps to establish targets and points of reference for the short and medium term. It outlines priorities and the expected roles of different groups; and it builds consensus and informs people. Articulation of these objectives is found in legislation, judicial opinions, regulations, guidelines, standards, etc. that affect health care and public health (World Health Organization, 2023).

Source: World Health Organization. (2023). Health system governance. http://www.who.int/topics/health_policy/en/

Some Examples of Websites to Explore for a Health Policy: (These are just some examples of websites to visit for ideas for health policies.)

• • Health Care Organizations (American Public Health Association, American Health Care Association, American Hospital Association, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Kaiser Family Foundation, National Institutes of Health).

• • Nursing Organizations (American Association of Colleges of Nursing, American Association of Critical-Care Nurses, American Association of Nurse Anesthetists, American Nurses Association, American Psychiatric Nurses Association, Emergency Nurses Association, National Council of State Boards of Nursing, National Organization of Nurse Practitioners).