Systematically mapping and analysing multi-level policy developments: a methodological toolkit

Abstract

Abstract Policy analysis is a multi-disciplinary approach to public and social policy that aims to explain the interaction between institutions, ideas, and interests in the policymaking process. It is useful prospectively to plan for future policymaking and retrospectively to understand past policy failures or identify good practices. However, current methods of systematically mapping policy in health are lacking in the qualitative research field. In this article, we outline a novel methodological toolkit that allows for a systematic approach to reviewing policy developments cross-sectionally and longitudinally through a qualitative modular approach: (1) develop a comprehensive search strategy for policy databases; (2) review and extract relevant policies and legislation directly from original sources; (3) develop a multi-layered search strategy for scientific databases; (4) merge policy and academic publications according to the eligibility criteria; (5) acquire further information through searching reference lists of included policies and articles; and (6) merge the three searches into one single data repository for further analysis. Our methodological toolkit gives a point-by-point description of how to design, perform, and report a systematic and reproduceable policy mapping article, as well as how that policy data can be analysed further to lead to prospective policy action points.