Health policy is the traditional home of prevention policies. Public health is at the heart of policies designed to improve population health, and perhaps reduce health inequalities, often through changes in behaviour at an early age. Public health policy tends to be a hub for advocates of EBPM. In theory, healthcare and public health are symbiotic, particularly if early public health interventions reduce demand for acute healthcare. However, in practice, public health is an exemplar of the wide gap between expectations for ‘evidence-based’ prevention policy and actual outcomes. To demonstrate, first, we apply our theoretical approach, outlined in Chapters 1 to 3, to present a broad examination of health policy and the role of prevention within it, considering what a window of opportunity for prevention policy within a complex system means in relation to health and public health policy. Second, we show that the UK and Scottish governments have described different policy styles, but faced and addressed the ambiguity and complexity of preventive health policy in similar ways. Third, our comparison of broad prevention versus specific tobacco policies shows why substantive policy change is more apparent in the latter: there is a clearer definition of the policy problem, a more supportive environment for meaningful policy change, and more windows of opportunity for specific policy changes. These three conditions are not yet fulfilled in the broader prevention agenda.
The divergence of minimum unit pricing policy across the UK: opportunities for public health policy development