Health policy making: The Dutch experience

The European Strategy for Health for All by the Year 2000 urged member states to develop a national health policy. In the developmental process of HFA2000 the notion of ‘healthy public policy’ was conceived in the framework of the WHO Health Promotion Programme. Such ‘healthy public policy’—simply referred to as ‘health policy’ in this article—would take health consequences in all governmental and societal realms into account. Health policy development in The Netherlands was laid down in a 1986 memorandum, ‘Nota 2000’. The developmental process of the document is reviewed, and chances for factual implementation analysed. The article concludes with a list of actions to be pursued if health policy is to be successful.