Table 1 Guiding questions for policy dialogues

In designing legitimate policy dialogues, organizers should consider:

 1

Core characteristics

• Is the policy dialogue focused on a high-priority issue, evidence-informed, action-oriented, participatory and deliberative?

 2

Objectives

• How should these core characteristics be elaborated and specified in this context, to ensure that the policy dialogue has meaningful policy and public health impact?

 3

Contributions

• What is needed from organizers, researchers and donors to ensure that the policy dialogue has these characteristics and meets these objectives? What is needed from participants?

In thinking about what matters, facilitators and participants should consider:

 4

Aims

• What is the aim of policy-making in this area?

• What must policies achieve to address the public health issue effectively?

 5

Intended impact

• What are the intended and expected health and social outcomes of the policy options under consideration? For example:

 • What benefits will be attained?

 • What harms or problems will be prevented?

 • How certain it is that policy options will achieve these intended outcomes?

 6

Broader impact

• Aside from the intended and expected health outcomes, what is the likely impact of the policy options under consideration? For example:

 • What costs and benefits are not captured in the evidence?

 • What costs and benefits are difficult or impossible to measure?

 • What might the broader societal or institutional consequences of this policy be?

 • How might things go wrong?

 7

Who is impacted

• Who will be impacted by the policy and in what ways? For example:

 • Who will benefit, who will not benefit and on whom will the costs fall?

 • Will the same people who benefit also endure costs?

 • Will people who are already disadvantaged be further disadvantaged?

 • Whose perspectives and what sets of purposes, inform the identification and framing of the problem and the proposed solutions? Has anyone been left out of discussions?

In evaluating policy options, facilitators and participants should consider:

 8

Non-negotiables

• Are there any outcomes that absolutely must be avoided or must be achieved if the policy is to count as successful?

 9

Minimizing costs

• How can the policy options be combined or reconceived to reduce the social costs and negative impact?

• Are compromise solutions in fact likely to achieve the aims of the policy and address the public health issue in question effectively?

 10

Perspectives

• How do the proposed policy options, and their balance of benefits and burdens, look from the perspective of your different roles in life – not just in relation to your job or institutional affiliation but as a parent, a carer, a patient and user of public services, a citizen, a human, and so on?