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Background: European societies are ageing rapidly and thus health promotion for older people (HP4OP) is becoming an increasingly relevant issue. Crucial here is not only the clinical aspect of health promotion but also its organisational and institutional dimension. The latter has been relatively neglected in research on HP4OP. This issue is addressed in this study, constituting a part of the EU project ProHealth65+, engaging ten member countries. This paper is based on two intertwining research goals: (1) exploring which institutions/organisations are performing HP4OP activities in selected European countries (including sectors involved, performed roles of these institutions, organisation of those activities); (2) developing an institutional approach to HP4OP. Thus, the paper provides a description of the analytical tools for further research in this area.Methods: The mentioned aims were addressed through the mutual use of two complementary methods: (a) a literature review of scientific and grey literature; and (b) questionnaire survey with selected expert respondents from 10 European countries. The expert respondents, selected by the project's collaborating partners, were asked to fill in a custom designed questionnaire concerning HP4OP institutional aspects.Results: The literature review provided an overview of the organisational arrangements in different HP4OP initiatives. It also enabled the development of functional institutional definitions of health promotion, health promotion activities and interventions, as well as an institutional definition adequate to the health promotion context. The distinctions between sectors were also clarified. The elaborated questionnaires provided in-depth information on countries specifically indicating the key sectors involved in HP4OP in those selected countries. These are: health care, regional/local authorities, NGO's/voluntary institutions. The questionnaire and literature review both resulted in the indication of a significant level of cross-sectorial cooperation in HP4OP.Conclusions: The inclusion of the institutional analysis within the study of HP4OP provides a valuable opportunity to analyse, in a systematic way, good practices in this respect, also in terms of institutional arrangements. A failure to address this aspect in policymaking might potentially cause organisational failure even in evidence-based programmes. This paper frames the perception of this problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Cancer centers are pressured to deliver high-quality services that can be measured and improved, which has led to an increase of assessments in many countries. A critical area of quality improvement is to improve patient outcome. An overview of existing assessments can help stakeholders (e.g., healthcare professionals, managers and policy makers) improve the quality of cancer research and care and lead to patient benefits. This paper presents key aspects of assessments undertaken by European cancer centers, such as: are assessments mandatory or voluntary? Do they focus on evaluating research, care or both? And are they international or national?Methods: A survey was sent to 33 cancer centers in 28 European Union member states. Participants were asked to score the specifics for each assessment that they listed.Results: Based on the responses from 19 cancer centers from 18 member states, we found 109 assessments. The numbers have steadily increased from 1990's till 2015. Although, a majority of assessments are on patient-care aspects (n = 45), it is unclear how many of those include assessing patient benefits. Only few assessments cover basic research. There is an increasing trend towards mixed assessments (i.e., combining research and patient-care aspects)Conclusions: The need for assessments in cancer centers is increasing. To improve efforts in the quality of research and patient care and to prevent new assessments that "reinvent the wheel", it is advised to start comparative research into the assessments that are likely to bring patient benefits and improve patient outcome. Do assessments provide consistent and reliable information that create added value for all key stakeholders? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Policy-making is a dynamic process involving the interplay of various factors. Power and its role are some of its core components. Though power exerts a profound role in policy-making, empirical evidence suggests that health policy analysis has paid only limited attention to the role of power, particularly in policy dialogues.Methods: This exploratory study, which used qualitative methods, had the main aim of learning about and understanding policy dialogues in five African countries and how power influences such processes. Data were collected using key informant interviews. An interview guide was developed with standardised questions and probes on the policy dialogues in each country. This paper utilises these data plus document review to understand how power was manifested during the policy dialogues. Reference is made to the Arts and Tatenhove conceptual framework on power dimensions to understand how power featured during the policy dialogues in African health contexts. Arts and Tatenhove conceptualise power in policy-making in relational, dispositional and structural layers.Results: Our study found that power was applied positively during the dialogues to prioritise agendas, fast-track processes, reorganise positions, focus attention on certain items and foster involvement of the community. Power was applied negatively during the dialogues, for example when position was used to control and shape dialogues, which limited innovation, and when knowledge power was used to influence decisions and the direction of the dialogues. Transitive power was used to challenge the government to think of implementation issues often forgotten during policy-making processes. Dispositional power was the most complex form of power expressed both overtly and covertly. Structural power was manifested socially, culturally, politically, legally and economically.Conclusions: This study shows that we need to be cognisant of the role of power during policy dialogues and put mechanisms in place to manage its influence. There is need for more research to determine how to channel power influence policy-making processes positively, for example through interactive policy dialogues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Countries in the World Health Organization African Region have witnessed an increase in global health initiatives in the recent past. Although these have provided opportunities for expanding coverage of health interventions; their poor alignment with the countries' priorities and weak coordination, are among the challenges that have affected their impact. A well-coordinated health policy dialogue provides an opportunity to address these challenges, but calls for common understanding among stakeholders of what policy dialogue entails. This paper seeks to assess stakeholders' understanding and perceived importance of health policy dialogue and of policy dialogue coordination.Methods: This was a cross-sectional descriptive study using qualitative methods. Interviews were conducted with 90 key informants from the national and sub-national levels in Lusophone Cabo Verde, Francophone Chad, Guinea and Togo, and Anglophone Liberia using an open-ended interview guide. The interviews were transcribed verbatim, coded and then put through inductive thematic content analysis using QRS software Version 10.Results: There were variations in the definition of policy dialogue that were not necessarily linked to the linguistic leaning of respondents' countries or whether the dialogue took place at the national or sub-national level. The definitions were grouped into five categories based on whether they had an outcome, operational, process, forum or platform, or interactive and evidence-sharing orientation. The stakeholders highlighted multiple benefits of policy dialogue including ensuring stakeholder participation, improving stakeholder harmonisation and alignment, supporting implementation of health policies, fostering continued institutional learning, providing a guiding framework and facilitating stakeholder analysis.Conclusion: Policy dialogue offers the opportunity to improve stakeholder participation in policy development and promote aid effectiveness. However, conceptual clarity is needed to ensure pursuance of common objectives. While it is clear that stakeholder involvement is an important component of policy dialogue, numbers must be manageable for meaningful dialogue. Ownership and coordination of the policy dialogue are important aspects of the process, and building the institutional capacity of the ministry of health requires a comprehensive approach as opposed to strengthening selected departments within it. Likewise, capacity for policy dialogue needs to be built at the sub-national level, alongside improving the bottom-up approach in policy processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The Global Forum 2015 panel session dialogue entitled "From evidence to policy - thinking outside the box" was held on 26 August 2015 in the Philippines to debate why evidence was not fully translated into policy and practice and what could be done to increase its uptake. This paper reports the reasons and possible actions for increasing the uptake of evidence, and highlights the actions partners could take to increase the use of evidence in the African Region.Discussion: The Global Forum 2015 debate attributed African Region's low uptake of evidence to the big gap in incentives and interests between research for health researchers and public health policy-makers; limited appreciation on the side of researchers that public health decisions are based on multiple and complex considerations; perception among users that research evidence is not relevant to local contexts; absence of knowledge translation platforms; sub-optimal collaboration and engagement between industry and research institutions; lack of involvement of civil society organizations; lack of engagement of communities in the research process; failure to engage the media; limited awareness and debate in national and local parliaments on the importance of investing in research and innovation; and dearth of research and innovation parks in the African Region.Conclusion: The actions needed in the Region to increase the uptake of evidence in policy and practice include strengthening NHRS governance; bridging the motivation gap between researchers and health policy-makers; restoring trust between researchers and decision-makers; ensuring close and continuous intellectual intercourse among researchers, ministry of health policy-makers and technocrats during the life course of research projects or programmes; proactive collaboration between academia and industry; regular briefings of civil society, media, relevant parliamentary committees and development partners; development of vibrant knowledge translation platforms; development of action plans for implementing research recommendations, preferably in the context of the Sustainable Development Goals; and encouragement of competition on NHRS strengthening and research output and uptake among the countries using a barometer or scorecard to review their performance at various regional ministerial forums and taking into account the lessons learned from the MDG period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]