Global Public Health Policies: Public Health Associations’ Perspectives

The definition of advocacy may exhibit slight variations across different disciplines. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), health advocacy is a combination of social actions designed to gain political commitment, policy support, social acceptance, and systems support for a particular goal or program. Advocacy is identified as one of the core functions of public health and is a key tool for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Within global public health, advocacy involves the engagement of diverse stakeholders in decision-making to improve population health. National public health associations and international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) play a vital role in advocating, advising decision-makers, guiding initiatives, and raising citizens’ awareness. Advocacy initiatives and campaigns, joint position statements, resolutions, and internal policies are recognized as the main tools used to influence policy in public health advocacy.

In a recent study by the researchers of the WFPHA, they investigated the focus of public health advocacy carried out by national public health associations over 4 years, between 2018 and 2021, to identify strengths and gaps in national and international advocacy and highlight areas where policy development could be strengthened. 12 national public health associations, including Ethiopia, Cameroon, South Africa, Nigeria, Canada, the United States of America (USA), Brazil, Spain, France, the United Kingdom (UK), Australia, and New Zealand, participated in their study, and a total of 220 policy documents were analyzed.

According to the study, the largest number of policy documents came from high-income countries and dealt with environmental health and communicable diseases, including COVID-19, with, however, important differences among regions. In the African region, public health advocacy focused mainly on strengthening health systems; Europe and South America were mostly concerned with communicable diseases and pandemic management; and North America and the Western Pacific regions focused primarily on climate change. In all regions, limited attention was paid to international health and health as a human right.

The study revealed that public health associations are active advocates for several public health issues. However, more effort should be devoted to implementing a more international and intersectoral approach, rooted in health as a human right.

According to the study, better use of resources and evidence to design health interventions, easy accessibility of data for policy and decision-makers, improved funding mechanisms, and citizen awareness are needed to strengthen the advocacy process.

The study recommended that in the future, advocacy efforts could involve more academics, journalists, and influencers, who would collaborate with national public health associations and professionals, as a single voice of civil society.