Health Policy: Critical and Comparative Perspectives

This important new textbook provides comparative and critical analysis of healthcare policy from high income states in Europe to low-income countries in the Global South.

It integrates conceptual themes drawn from the fields of sociology, policy analysis, and political science to offer a unique combination of theory, historical background, and wider social commentary. The book is divided into three sections:

• Section one establishes the conceptual basis for the analysis of the health policy-making process, including implementation.
• Section two provides an introduction to the key elements of conducting a comparative health systems analysis, including chapters that provide examples of performance analysis in both high and low-income countries.
• Section Three examines key challenges now facing health policy makers that include long-term social care provision, widening the scope of public health to address social inequalities in health outcome, the integration of genomic medicine within the NHS and the establishment of an effective pharmaceutical policy to provide the cost-effective medicines required by the health system.

Each chapter includes case studies, historical contexts, and summaries of the key policy. Detailed and clearly written, it is the ideal text for students across the health and social sciences in this important area.