Positively Influencing Policy Prescriptions

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/wmh3.313
• Date: 01 September 2019
• Published date: 01 September 2019

210

doi: 10.1002/wmh3.313

© 2019 Policy Studies Organization

Editorial

Positively Influencing Policy Prescriptions

Bonnie Stabile

The primary goal of policy analysis is to improve the lives of the populations

studied. Sometimes this is accomplished by incisive examination of specific policies,

while at other times, whole classes of policy, or the broader policy context, are

considered.

In this issue, Haeder examines the very particular case of network design and

access to percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI or angioplasty with stent)in the

Medicare Advantage and Affordable Care Act’s insurance marketplaces. In so

doing, he draws some potentially useful conclusions about their implications for

quality and access to care. Segelman, Intrator, Li, Mukama, and Temkin‐Greener

consider whether those enrolled in Medicaid home and community‐based services

experience differences in rates of hospitalization and they outline implications

about eligibility criteria for enrollees based on their findings.

In the field of substance use policy, two long‐term themes in our pages re-

appear in this issue, including work by some returning authors. Giesbrecht, Bosma,

and Reisdorfer focus on the challenges faced in the implementation of alcohol

policies and offer some approaches to be tried in response. This work expands

upon an earlier investigation on the topic of “Implementing and Sustaining Ef-

fective Alcohol‐Related Policies at the Local Level”by Giebrecht, Bosma, Juras,

and Quadri (2014). In the current issue, Ferraiolo turns her attention to “Messaging

and Advocacy in U.S. Tobacco Control Policy, 2009–19”while in 2014 her focus was

on “Morality Framing in U.S. Drug Control Policy”in the case of marijuana de-

criminalization (Ferraiolo, 2014). In both cases, she considers the importance and

tangible outcomes associated with how policy is written and talked about. Both

current pieces on substance use policy—involving either alcohol or tobacco—bring

to mind Cairney and Studlar’s 2014 piece on health policy in the United Kingdom,

which wondered, after the “War on Tobacco”whether a “War on Alcohol”was

brewing.

In her commentary on Cuban maternity care policy, Pettit Bruns, Pawlowski, and

Robinson decry the inexcusably high infant mortality rate in the United States, partic-

ularly in rural areas, and look abroad for lessons of models that might ameliorate this

regrettable condition. Earlier in 2019, Piane reviewed the literature on maternal mortality