· Identify a policy that is not usually intended to be a health policy but that you think may have important health implications.
I think the policy which allowed religious and philosophical exemption from mandatory vaccinations is a policy that is not directly intended to impact health, rather its intention is to be respective of parents' belief systems, is an extremely detrimental policy to the health outcomes for children specifically.
· Describe why an evaluation of that policy is informative (e.g., determining effects of the policy, or primarily a test of hypothesized mediators).
I believe that an evaluation of any policy that has been instated to create some sort of positive effect should be evaluated using a data matrix that encompasses different aspects of the issue. Doing so will allow policymakers, who are not experts in each of these aspects, to truly understand the core of the issue and evaluate whether the positive effects of this policy outweigh the repercussions that it may have on some populations. For example, when the religious/philosophical exemption is maintained, this places many populations at risk for acquiring vaccine-preventable diseases, such as measles.
· Specify the outcomes and populations you think most affected or least affected by the policy.
Children's health is the most impacted by this policy, because it is their parents' belief system that is maintained and respected when deciding on vaccines. Children are most exposed to these vaccine-preventable diseases when they are out in public, and this places their own health, their families' health, and those in the area exposed to these children at risk. Allowing some members of the population to be exposed to preventable diseases such as measles can be a huge burden on the healthcare system as well.
· Propose a study design to evaluate the policy.
One could look at before and after implementation of this policy to measure the healthcare outcomes of this policy.
· Describe biggest challenge to implementing and drawing inferences about the impact of the policy on health.
I think the biggest challenge to drawing inferences about any policy is that policies have many different angles of impact. When drawing an inference about the impact of any policy, one will miss many points of consideration. A challenge to evaluating the impact of a policy is that we can only do that after the policy has negatively affected people already, so scoping the potential effect of the policy can only go so far as there may be unanticipated outcomes. One challenge is how you measure and define success- how is a policy successful? Outlining these important questions at the beginning of a policy analysis is critical in the trajectory for impact evaluation of a policy.