TRANSLATING CLINICAL-PRACTICE INTO HEALTH-POLICY - AN EXAMPLE FROM CHINA

Understanding a health problem and even having the technological capab ility to solve it are often not enough to lead to changes in health po licy. To help accomplish such policy changes, we propose a five-step a pproach that involves (1) specifying the disciplines; (2) developing m ultidisciplinary hypotheses; (3) investigating the hypotheses; (4) dev eloping a policy 'story'; and (5) advocating these solutions to policy makers. We use the example of neonatal hypothermia in Eastern China t o illustrate this approach. We found that the approach both better inf ormed policy and better motivated policy change. Using the approach ex tended our involvement from the hospital to a wider population; in add ition our initial solutions expanded from clinical interventions to br oader public health approaches that proved to be quite different from our original recommendations.