Emerging need for health policy teaching in India.

The core functions of public health agencies at all levels of government are identified as assessment, policy development, and assurance. However, the public health agencies in India are struggling with issues of access, inefficiency, and inequity. There has been failure in terms of health service delivery by public sector. Health Policy is being increasingly recognized as a discipline that has much to offer developing countries in addressing the problems related to policy, governance, and regulatory failure. However, the information about skill-oriented courses on health policy especially from the context of translating public health science into policy action is incomplete and limited. This paper attempts to address this knowledge gap and stimulate discussion in this direction.

Diabetes care in India: Assessing the need for Evidence-Based education.

The top 3 countries with the highest number of people living with diabetes are China, India and USA. Diabetes not only reduces the quality of life and life expectancy, but also imposes huge economic burden on the health system and families. For improved diabetes care and patient outcomes continuing medical education of the existing health work force in evidence based diabetes care is essential. Patient’s education in diabetes self-management is also essential. This article reviews the existing literature on evidence based practice in diabetes care and barriers at physician-patient level to suggest that there is legitimate need of competency based training in diabetes management. The article also attempts to identify some of these existing educational programmes in diabetes management in India and their key strengths.