Suchergebnisse

As higher level in terms of geo-political integration policy making goes as larger the impact of policies and consequently benefits and hazards related to policies can be. In the globalized world nations states give up their policy making roles on certain areas of policy making to higher, international or transnational level of policy making. Therefore a policy risk assessment tool should be able to assess risks related to such international or transnational policies and strategies. Previous chapters of this book described development of RAPID guidance both top-down and bottom-up methodology on level of national policies. This sub-chapter is going to discuss testing of the top-down RAPID guidance on level of a European Union (EU) policy. The EU Health Strategy 2008-2013 "Together for health" was subjected to the assessment after a negotiation process with the Executive Agency for health and Consumers (EAHC) and the Directorate for health and consumer protection (DG SANCO) of the European Commission. The main objective of testing the developed policy risk assessment tool on a real case on international level was to identify weaknesses and missing elements which could be applicable on international level, but not necessarily relevant on national level policies. The chapter describes results of this testing. ; .

The assessment of health risks of policies is an inevitable, although challenging prerequisite for the inclusion of health considerations in political decision making. The aim of our project was to develop a so far missing methodological guide for the assessment of the complex impact structure of policies. The guide was developed in a consensual way based on experiences gathered during the assessment of specific national policies selected by the partners of an EU project. Methodological considerations were discussed and summarized in workshops and pilot tested on the EU Health Strategy for finalization. The combined tool, which includes a textual guidance and a checklist, follows the top-down approach, that is, it guides the analysis of causal chains from the policy through related health determinants and risk factors to health outcomes. The tool discusses the most important practical issues of assessment by impact level. It emphasises the transparent identification and prioritisation of factors, the consideration of the feasibility of exposure and outcome assessmentwith special focus on quantification. The developed guide provides useful methodological instructions for the comprehensive assessment of health risks of policies that can be effectively used in the health impact assessment of policy proposals.