Advocacy for healthy public policy as a health promotion technology

This paper describes the evidence base that has emerged in the literature with respect to advocacy for healthy public policy as a health promotion technology. As a technology, and a defined and recognized method of practice developed out of theory and observation, policy advocacy is relatively new in health promotion/public health, entering the literature about two decades ago. The evidence base is not shored up by systematic overviews, assessments or meta-analyses of the efficacy of policy advocacy. Rather, it consists largely of principles and guidelines culled from the experience of players in the policy advocacy arena, and what could be characterized as case studies of efforts to achieve policy changes (typically in terms of legislation, regulations under statutes, or decisions of regulatory bodies). To our knowledge this paper is the first attempt to characterize the evidence base with respect to policy advocacy as a health promotion technology, and to summarize the more cogent lessons learned from that base.