Global Policy Considerations in the Health Context

• Published date: 01 March 2020
• Author: Bonnie Stabile
• Date: 01 March 2020
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/wmh3.333

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doi: 10.1002/wmh3.333

© 2020 Policy Studies Organization

Editorial

Global Policy Considerations in the Health Context

Bonnie Stabile

Policy scholarship can improve the policy process by approaching it

from varying vantage points. Evaluative studies examine existing policies

and consider whether and how they might be mitigating the targeted

problem. Other studies consider the policy context, using theoretical frames

and empirical evidence to explain what factors might account for observed

outcomes. Still others can be prescriptive, offering recommendations of novel

approaches based on evolving scientific evidence, or lessons from historical

precedent.

In this first issue of a new decade, World Medical & Health Policy offers a

selection of articles from all of these persuasions, in policy contexts from the

Philippines, Iran, and Nigeria to U.S. state houses and college campuses. Chen

et al. consider whether benchmark prices set by the Department of Health are

being followed by local government units in the Philippines, and find that the

majority are likely not compliant, with implications for both the public seeking

essential medicines, as well as drug‐procuring agencies. Feizi and Moeindar-

bari take a look at the heterogeneity of market structures in Iran's unique organ

transplant landscape, and the accomplishment of the world's shortest waiting

list for organs, while considering some safeguards built into the model to

address concerns about undue inducement in the market among poorer pop-

ulations. And, in a commentary, Enabulele identifies challenges and offers

recommendations to address the shortcomings of Nigeria's National Health

Insurance scheme, which covers no more than 4 percent of the population

almost 15 years after its formal launch.

De Soto and Tajalli seek to address a deficit in the literature regarding

gendered patterns of drug use on campuses in the United States by considering

twotheoriesofhumanbehavior,asmeans to potentially improve under-

standing of the factors that influence adverse substance use outcomes. And

O'Mahen and Petersen offer an institutional frame to explain how varying state

structures can lead to different outcomes on Medicaid expansion decisions,

which affects health‐care equity and access.

Two articles in this issue (De Soto and Tajalli and Ovissi and Hagaman)

have their origin in a 2018 World Medical & Health Policy Call for Papers on