Policy Depot: An Online Tool to Build Capacity In Cardiovascular Health Policy

Background:  Recognizing the need to increase the capacity of policy stakeholders to develop and implement laws, policies, and regulations to promote cardiovascular health and reduce risk for CVD, the National Forum for Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention and the Collaboration for Integrated Non-communicable Disease Intervention program will develop the Policy Depot, launching its first phase in the fall of 2012. In the short term, the Policy Depot will provide an online tool to assist stakeholders worldwide in the formulation and implementation of evidence-based and effective policies to improve the prevention of CVD and its risk factors. The Policy Depot is intended to serve a primary audience of public health workers and advocates at the local, state/district/provincial, national, and global level, along with policymakers, funders, and researchers. The Policy Depot will provide an interactive space for stakeholders across these levels to identify and share best practices and lessons learned. The Policy Depot will accomplish its objectives by developing a network of policy stakeholders, establishing an online forum, and providing a clearinghouseof information on policies currently in place.

Program background:  The Policy Depot will create virtual networks of loosely coupled, geographically dispersed policy stakeholders brought together through both more traditional self-selection and through networks generated by the Policy Depot based on the policy profiles of users. Policy stakeholders will be able to use the online forum component of the Policy Depot to interact with others in a variety of ways, in real time or at their convenience, all within the same online space. The Policy Depot will create a platform in which policy stakeholders can access the experiences and outcomes, including both successes and challenges, of existing policy interventions in a way that is coupled with information about the characteristics and policy environment of the places in which they were implemented.

Evaluation Methods and Results: Evaluation is yet to be accomplished as the tool will launch in fall 2012.

Conclusions:  The Institute of Medicine report, Promoting Cardiovascular Health in the Developing World, and the subsequent workshop on Country-Level Decision Making for Control of Chronic Diseases emphasized the need to implement policies to promote cardiovascular health, as well as the need to improve local data, and disseminate knowledge among similar countries so that prevention and control efforts will be based on the most locally relevant information and evidence possible. These principles will be exemplified in the tools the Policy Depot will offer to facilitate the implementation of policies to promote cardiovascular health. The network and online forum will promote timely information sharing among stakeholders whose local circumstances share similarities across a number of characteristics that go well beyond geography, thus introducing novel, unexpected opportunities to learn and benefit from the experiences of colleagues. In addition, the clearinghouse will allow access to information in a way that maximizes the user’s ability to assess contextual relevance and appropriately guide the selection, prioritization, and implementation of policies.

Implications for research and/or practice: Implications are that an online tool can indeed build stakeholder capacity to develop and implement cardiovascualr health policy across geographies through online interaction, best practice sharing, and virtual networking.