PHAA Policy and Advocacy Team
The Policy Review Cycle for 2024 has kicked off with a record number of policy position statements up for review.
What is the policy review cycle?
To keep PHAA’s policies up-to-date, our commitment is to review all policy position statements every three years, resulting in around a third of the collection being reviewed each year. In addition, each year new statements will be proposed, and others may be merged, split, or archived.
The policy review cycle begins at the start of the calendar year and is completed at the PHAA annual general meeting in September.
The cycle consists of two drafting periods; the first is completed by writing groups of PHAA members; and the second occurs when the general PHAA membership is invited to provide feedback on the draft policy position statements.
All new and updated policies are subject to review by the PHAA National Office, PHAA Vice President (Policy), and the PHAA Board.
What is a policy position statement?
Policy position statements are an essential part of our functioning. They tell the public where PHAA stands on certain issues.
This information is available free on our website, for everyone, including members of the media, governments, other not-for-profits, political advisors, students, and other peak bodies.
As Australia’s peak body for public health, our position on public health issues is important.
That’s why we endeavour to have a rigorous review process with only high-quality data and evidence to support our positions.
PHAA National Office uses the policy positions statements almost every day. Whether it is to pull directly from the policy to include in a meeting, submission, interview or letter, or to use as guidance during strategic decision making; policy position statements are a core part of our advocacy.
What policies are up for review/will be created this year?
Please note that this list will be continuously updated on the Policy Review Cycle webpage until all SIGs have notified PHAA National of their policy plan on 6 March 2024. The policies listed below are NOT final and are subject to change. This table does not include all policies proposed for this year.
What is the policy review cycle timeline?
How do I get involved?
Any member of PHAA can participate in the policy review cycle. If you’re not yet a member and are interested in participating, find out how to join us here.
If any of the above policies interest you, you can join the writing team by contacting the Special Interest Groups (SIGs) directly through the following addresses:
| Child and Youth Health SIG | CYHSIG@phaa.net.au |
| Complementary Medicine SIG | CMSIG@phaa.net.au |
| Diversity, Equity and Inclusion SIG | DEISIG@phaa.net.au |
| Ecology & Environment SIG | EESIG@phaa.net.au |
| Food & Nutrition SIG | FANSIG@phaa.net.au |
| Health Promotion SIG | HPSIG@phaa.net.au |
| International Health SIG | IHSIG@phaa.net.au |
| Justice Health SIG | JHSIG@phaa.net.au |
| Mental Health SIG | MHSIG@phaa.net.au |
| One Health SIG | OHSIG@phaa.net.au |
| Political Economy of Health SIG | PEHSIG@phaa.net.au |
| Women’s Health SIG | WHSIG@phaa.net.au |
Proposed policies will be announced after 6 March, so be sure to keep an eye on the Pump, the policy review cycle webpage, and your emails if you are interested in participating in the creation of the proposed policies.
What is involved?
If you are reviewing a policy, you may be part of a team that assesses a policy’s content, removes outdated language, actions, evidence and references, and replaces these with up-to-date information.
These tasks will largely take place in the first drafting period (6 March – 10 May).
Drafting period two (10 May – 1 July) involves editing the draft to incorporate PHAA National Office feedback and PHAA member feedback.
If you are time-poor, you can instead take part in the general member review of the first draft.
From 10 May, the first drafts of the policies will be posted online for all PHAA members to review and provide feedback.
Changes to the review for 2024
After receiving the results for the end of cycle survey in 2023, there have been several changes made to the policy review cycle process to ensure continuous improvement:
- If a policy has not been updated in the past five years, then it will be automatically archived at the end of that year’s cycle if revision has not been made. i.e., if policies last reviewed in 2019 or later are not reviewed by the PHAA 2024 AGM, they will be archived.
- PHAA National Office will provide SIG Convenors with the master list of all policies and when they are due for review to help with workload planning.
- Launching the Policy Review Cycle a few weeks earlier to allow more time for SIGs to organise writing groups and begin drafting period 1.
- The use of Google docs for the first and second drafting periods to streamline the feedback process.
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