The positioning of policy documents in the field of health policy and systems research.

backgroundIn realization of the importance of health policy, several scholars have examined health policies, contributing to the development of the field of health policy and systems research (HPSR). A growing body of literature within HPSR systematically analyses published articles in journals to examine how specific topics are dealt with in HPSR journals. The focus has extensively been on how research shapes policies and transfer of research to policy and practice. The present study takes a new approach in thinking about policy documents by exploring how policy documents are positioned in HPSR publications. In other words, the study answers the question of how policy documents are positioned in HPSR journal articles.

methodsThe study examined how policy documents were positioned in selected health policy journal articles. It analysed articles in Q1 journals indexed in Scopus under the journal subject health policy and published in 2022. A total of 52 articles were included in the full analysis. A data collection tool was created to tabulate extracted data which included data about journals, articles, and policy and methodological descriptions. Data were interpreted and analysed using descriptive statistics.

resultsOriginal research articles represented the majority of the analysed articles (72%). Multiple authorship was most common (63%), with authors from Western countries contributing the most to the publications. Analysed policies had a wide variety of foci and were mainly national-level policies (63%). Most of the articles included more than one policy for analysis (86%). Document analysis of policy documents was the only source of data in 33% of the articles. In addition, 27% of the articles lacked depth or details on how document analysis was conducted. The majority of the articles were aligned with policymaking as one phase of the policy process (31%).

conclusionsThe study reflects a primary effort to examine how policy documents are positioned in HPSR articles. The study's findings contribute to the extant literature on the limited use of document analysis in HPSR. It further extends the research policy gap by understanding policy documents as a primary data source for researchers with a clear lack of its consideration for policy implementation or evaluation. The study's findings introduce implications and provide recommendations for research, policy and practice.