International journal of health policy and management
-
Int J Health Policy Manag · Nov 2014
Radically questioning the principle of the least restrictive alternative: a reply to Nir Eyal: Comment on "Nudging by Shaming, Shaming by Nudging".
In his insightful editorial, Nir Eyal explores the connections between nudging and shaming. One upshot of his argument is that we should question the principle of the least restrictive alternative in public health and health policy. In this commentary, I maintain that Eyal's argument undermines only a rather implausible version of the principle of the least restrictive alternative and I sketch two reasons for rejecting the mainstream and more plausible version of this principle.
-
Int J Health Policy Manag · Nov 2014
Nudging, shaming and stigmatising to improve population health: Comment on "Nudging by shaming, shaming by nudging".
Nudges are small, often imperceptible changes to how particular decisions present themselves to individuals that are meant to influence those decisions. In his editorial, 'Nudging by shaming, shaming by nudging', Eyal highlights links between nudges and feelings of shame on the part of the 'chooser'. In this commentary, I suggest two further distinctions between different types of shame-based nudges that should affect our assessment of such nudges.
-
Int J Health Policy Manag · Oct 2014
Iran's shift in family planning policies: concerns and challenges.
Iran's significant success in implementing Family Planning (FP) during the past 25 years, has made it a role model in the world. The Total Fertility Rate (TFR) in Iran has dropped from 6.5 in 1960 to 1.6 in 2012, which is well below the targeted value of 2.2 for the country. ⋯ On the other hand, Iranian policy-makers are very concerned about such a decrease and have recently restricted access to contraception, while outlawing any surgery that reduces fertility. This paper, tries to highlight the pros and cons of such restrictive policies, and argue that the policy-makers might be jeopardizing the success of Iran's FP program by overestimating its role in the TFR reduction rate.
-
Int J Health Policy Manag · Aug 2014
The development of a critical appraisal tool for use in systematic reviews addressing questions of prevalence.
Recently there has been a significant increase in the number of systematic reviews addressing questions of prevalence. Key features of a systematic review include the creation of an a priori protocol, clear inclusion criteria, a structured and systematic search process, critical appraisal of studies, and a formal process of data extraction followed by methods to synthesize, or combine, this data. Currently there exists no standard method for conducting critical appraisal of studies in systematic reviews of prevalence data. ⋯ The results of this pilot study found that this tool was well-accepted by users and further refinements have been made to the tool based on their feedback. We now put forward this tool for use by authors conducting prevalence systematic reviews.
-
Int J Health Policy Manag · Aug 2014
Macroeconomic policies and increasing social-health inequality in Iran.
Health is a complex phenomenon that can be studied from different approaches. Despite a growing research in the areas of Social Determinants of Health (SDH) and health equity, effects of macroeconomic policies on the social aspect of health are unknown in developing countries. This study aimed to determine the effect of macroeconomic policies on increasing of the social-health inequality in Iran. ⋯ It is required to invest on the social determinants of health as a priority to reduce health inequality. Also, evaluating the extent to which the future macroeconomic policies impact the health of population is necessary.