31. Health policy and politics

Tamara Popic (Queen Mary University of London)

Emmanuele Pavolini (University of Milan) 

Franca Maino (University of Milan) 

The ‘usual suspects’ among challenges facing health policy, ageing and growing costs of health technologies, have been recently joined by new ones, digitalization and climate change. Questions such as to what extent these old and new challenges, or the mix of the two, affect health policy and politics across Europe continue to occupy scholars from the field. Moreover, one of the COVID legacies seems to be a move of scholarly interest in health policy and politics from the ‘margins’ of welfare state research towards the center, promising very fruitful debates. However, among issues that still remain relatively unexplored are, to mention some, comparative analysis of health policy in the context of more recent digitalization and climate challenges (What are the factors driving countries' responses to the new challenges?), analysis of new dimension(s) of the EU influence on health policy (Has the pandemic contributed to the expansion of the EU’s role in health policy?) and of trends on public opinion towards health systems and policies (What do Europeans think about health policy?). The main aim of this stream is to bring together scholars working on these and other related aspects of health policy and politics in the context of past and current challenges affecting health and welfare state policy more broadly. 

More specifically, we welcome papers that treat (but are not limited to) topics such as: 

- Analysis of health policies and politics in the pre- and post-COVID era

- The impact of the ageing population on health systems

- Old and new theories and concepts in the analysis of health policy

- Different methodological traditions or innovations in researching health policy

- Public opinion on health systems/policies

- Analysis of the politics of health in the context of digitalisation and big data

- Eco-social dimension of health policy 

We welcome contributions that examine the issues of healthcare policy and politics with reference to any region of Europe or beyond. 

The stream welcomes different methodological approaches and hopes to stimulate crossing of disciplinary boundaries.