International Journal of Health Policy and Management

International Journal of Health Policy and Management

The Need for Balanced Health Policies to Avoid Path Dependent Medicine

Document Type : Perspective

Author
Amirhossein Takian
Division of Health Studies, School of Health Sciences & Social Care, Brunel University London, Uxbridge, UK
10.15171/ijhpm.2013.02
Subjects
  • Looking at the past, do you think that health policy arena has been successful to make healthy policies for all human kind?
  • Has the time arrived to move from evidence-based policy making towards needs-based, futuristic, and healthy health policy making?
  • If so, how can we make this shift happening?


Health policy has been intrinsically linked to economic, financial, social, and regional policy. Global efforts and governmental commitments to making healthy public policies and improving health conditions have been phenomenally extensive and comprehensive in the course of the last few decades. The millennium development goals (MDGs) and valuable attempts by international and supranational bodies, i.e. World Health Organization (WHO); World Bank; Global Fund to fight Tuberculosis (TB), Malaria and AIDS; Gates Foundation, to count a few, have been fundamentally exemplar in improving global health, particularly for the poor. After the second world war, particularly in the period of the last 20 years, technological advances have brought magical outcomes to human life. For example, HIV/AIDS was terrifying 10 years ago. Although it is still an international concern and frightening for many nations, recent advances to cure and manage HIV positive patients have been astounding. There are types of cancers that are considered curable today, most of which would have killed people even at the beginning of the millennium. Unfortunately, millions of people still die from conditions such as malaria and TB.

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  • Received Date 01 June 2013
  • Revised Date 12 June 2013
  • Accepted Date 12 June 2013
  • First Published Date 12 June 2013
  • Published Date 12 June 2013