We may not be able to make you love reading, but archaeology of knowledge will lead you to love reading starting from now. Book is the window to open the new world. The world that you want is in the better stage and level. World will always guide you to even the prestige stage of the life. You know, this is some of how reading will give you the kindness. In this case, more books you read more knowledge you know, but it can mean also the bore is full.

The archaeology of knowledge

I first read Davidson 30 years ago: at that time it was already in its 5th edition. A brief comparison shows that it then contained about 440,000 words in 1,100 pages: the current edition has compressed 625,000 words into 800 pages. I think I bought it as a student because it was cheap: but also because it seemed to be comprehensive and straightforward, and I have used it as a basis for my medical knowledge ever since. So I miss some of the old pictures of the acute skin rashes such as scarlet fever: in fact infectious disease has been transferred to the back and genetic factors take the first chapters. But careful linguistic comparison will still uncover the old phrases which some of us know by heart-there are minor changes such as 'alarming reactions to intravenous iron are uncommon, but have occasionally been noted', which becomes 'alarming systemic anaphyllactic reactions can occur'. Sir Stanley Davidson made 'no attempt to describe every rare disease or syndrome, but devoted most of the space available to those disorders most commonly encountered in practice'. I have grown up with successive editions, and have gradually come to appreciate the problems of the authors in the compression of knowledge. Having got to know many of them personally as real people rather than as names I can still recommend the book. It is the essential starting point for the study of internal medicine and for many doctors will remain their base reference work. The present editors have kept up-to-date and been prepared to prune the dead wood. There are many competitors in the market, and the publishers must take care with layout and illustration, although Davidson is still the best value for money. I will continue to recommend it to my clinical students: they will need to read it and know it to pass final MB. Postgraduates will need to remember the facts, but also to be able to place them in a broader perspective. The older consultant will still happily read it, and to get to know the authors themselves is really to complete your medical education. Dr John Macleod and his team have successfully kept alive the primary objective 'to provide a rational and easily comprehensible basis for the practice of medicine'. The book is economical in price and compact in size, but still contains the essential truths for the practice of good medicine.

Davidson's Principles and Practice of Medicine

Una perspectiva que despierta cada vez mayor interés por parte de administradores públicos, políticos y analistas es el de las llamadas políticas públicas. Se trata de un camino relativamente nuevo, que permite, por una parte, observar y analizar los asuntos públicos desde un ángulo singular vinculado a la transformación de la acción gubernamental y, por otra, idear mecanismos para atender o dar respuesta a lo que se percibe como problemas de orden público. Como es sabido, los problemas públicos son complejos y multideterminados. Su análisis requiere de herramientas que van más allá de lo que comúnmente ofrecen disciplinas como la sociología, la economía, la ciencia política, la administración pública o la psicología por sí solas. De hecho, lo que busca la “ciencia de las políticas”, como la bautizó uno de sus padres fundadores, Harold Laswell (1992: 105), es integrar los conocimientos provenientes de diversas disciplinas bajo un enfoque cuyo objetivo es advertir y “solucionar” problemas. Recientemente, el académico británico Wayne Parsons se ha dado a la tarea de reunir en una sola publicación los aspectos más relevantes del conocimiento que se ha producido alrededor de las políticas públicas. Bajo el título Public Policy: An Introduction to the Theory and Practice of Policy Analysis, Parsons da cuenta de los temas y debates teóricos centrales de este enfoque, además de aportar múltiples referentes bibliográficos y detalles sobre estudios de caso que ilustran la riqueza de las políticas públicas, pues muestran no sólo cómo se aplican sino, sobre todo, qué explicaciones y respuestas pueden brindar. A ello se suma uno de los rasgos más valiosos del libro: poner en claro los dos ángulos de las políticas públicas que, con frecuencia, son ignorados en la bibliografía sobre la materia, a saber: el análisis del proceso de las políticas, por una parte y, por la otra, el análisis en y para el proceso de políticas, o, lo que es lo mismo, el uso del conocimiento y técnicas analíticas para el diseño, implementación y evaluación de las políticas públicas. Aunque ambos están intrínsecamente ligados, su especificidad determina su naturaleza y fin. Mientras el análisis del proceso de las políticas tiene fines

Public Policy: An Introduction to the Theory and Practice of Policy Analysis

Hugh Heclo, "Issue Networks and the Executive Establishment"

What Works? Evidence‐based Policy and Practice in Public Services

Background: 
Public health researchers and practitioners have repeatedly called for policy to be informed by academic evidence. The rise of the evidence-based medicine movement has demonstrated the potential benefits of using evidence for clinical decision-making. Recently, politicians and policy documents have echoed these calls for increased use of evidence in policymaking by drawing upon the discourse of evidence-based policy. However, efforts to understand the relationship between evidence and public health policy are underdeveloped and often make limited use of knowledge from other fields, including political science and sociology. This thesis aims to explore the relationship between evidence and public health policy in the UK using two contemporary case studies: the English public health White Paper, ‘Healthy Lives, Healthy People’; and the development of minimum unit pricing of alcohol in Scotland. 

Methods: 
The first case study: ‘Healthy Lives, Healthy People’ case study investigates the extent that three prominent discourses that draw upon academic work are reflected by the policy statements contained within the White Paper. The three areas examined include evidence on ‘what works’, the Nuffield framework on public health ethics and insights from behavioural science (‘nudge’). These discourses were chosen as they are not only rhetorically prominent in the White Paper, but also because they reflect the range of direct use of specific research findings and more conceptual use of research-derived ideas. To examine the extent that evidence on ‘what works’ has been incorporated into ‘Healthy Lives, Healthy People’, the research evidence for each of 51 specific policy actions described in the White Paper was reviewed. A critical analysis of ‘nudge’ and the Nuffield framework was conducted by contrasting their application with the authors’ original articulation.

The second case study explores the development of the high-profile public health policy of minimum unit pricing of alcohol by drawing upon three different sources of data. First, a review of policy documents was conducted. Second, a systematic document analysis of evidence submissions that were received by the Scottish Parliament’s Health and Sport Committee in response to its consultation on minimum unit pricing was performed. This analysis drew specifically on a framework for analysing political argumentation. Third, 36 semi-structured interviews were carried out with a broad range of policy stakeholders. Interviewees were purposively chosen to obtain diversity in supportiveness for minimum unit pricing, as well as by professional position (academic, advocate, civil servant, politician, industry representative). The evidence submissions and interview data were thematically coded and organised using NVivo 9.

Results: 
By systematically assessing the evidence underpinning the English public health White Paper, the study empirically established that public health policy does not meet conventional public health standards for being evidence-based. Similarly, the prominence of ‘nudge’ and the Nuffield framework in the text of ‘Healthy Lives, Healthy People’ do not appear to be matched by the actions suggested. However, this first case study finds that while evidence does have an influence, it does not determine policy. This relationship appears complex, partial and contingent rather than direct and instrumental, therefore necessitating a more detailed and focused case study. 

The second case study begins by providing a detailed description of the process by which minimum unit pricing developed in Scotland. It then draws on the analysis of evidence submission documents combined with interview data to identify a crucial role of public health advocates, who reframed the alcohol policy debate to bring about policy change. Epidemiological concepts were important in helping to achieve this shift in policy framing. Having investigated more conceptual influences of evidence, econometric modelling carried out by a team at the University of Sheffield is focused on as an example of a specific piece of research evidence that was perceived by interviewees to be influential in the policy debate. The different types of influence that the modelling study had on the policy process are determined and reasons for its influence investigated. The study also finds that interviewees believed econometric modelling could be more widely used to inform future public health policymaking. Lastly, a ‘multiple lenses’ approach builds upon these findings and political science theory to produce a comprehensive explanation of the policy process and describe the roles of evidence on the minimum unit pricing policy process. 
Discussion: 
Analysis of the ‘Healthy Lives, Healthy People’ White Paper shows that despite the prominent rhetoric for evidence-based policy, this is not reflected by the reality of current public health policy in the UK. The investigation of the development of minimum unit pricing of alcohol in Scotland demonstrates that evidence influences the policy process in a number of ways but these influences are heavily context-dependent. The role of evidence in changing the framing of the policy debate has been identified as of particular importance for this case study. The devolution process and evolving nature of political institutions also raises particular opportunities, but also challenges, for public health professionals. 

The strengths of the thesis include its use of two case studies to investigate the relationship between evidence and public health policy, the analysis of multiple sources of data in relation to minimum unit pricing policy and the application of political science theories that are typically underused in public health research. Limitations include the caution required when making generalisations from these data, particularly since these case studies have been purposively chosen. 

Drawing upon the two case studies, a conceptual model for the relationship between evidence and public health policy is articulated. The model suggests that evidence is likely to be used in different ways depending on the extent that the political values underpinning an issue are contested, with the importance of evidence for rhetorical purposes being a legitimate and helpful means of highlighting the health aspects of public policy issues. Lessons for public health researchers and practitioners, as well as directions for future research and theoretical implications, are considered and discussed.

The relationship between evidence and public health policy: case studies of the English public health white paper and minimum unit pricing of alcohol in Scotland

Srinivasa Vittal Katikireddi

Papers

The relationship between evidence and public health policy: case studies of the English public health white paper and minimum unit pricing of alcohol in Scotland