While healthcare has always been a priority for policymakers, the COVID-19 pandemic underscored the need for policy to evolve to prepare for future risks to the health of populations in the United States and worldwide. Understanding the fundamentals of health policy enables healthcare leaders to help improve it.

In Introduction to Health Policy, Dr. Leiyu Shi provides an accessible overview of how health policy is created and analyzed. As a prominent authority in the field, he provides insight into domestic and international policy issues related to healthcare financing, delivery, and diverse populations.

Each chapter includes real-world cases from various settings, additional feature content that provides context, key points of clarification, and discussion questions. The chapters on healthcare research delve into numerous examples of commonly used quantitative and qualitative methods.

This revised third edition contains a new case in each chapter, as well as new and updated coverage of:

• The Affordable Care Act and President Biden’s healthcare reforms
• The Healthy People 2030 initiative
• COVID-19-related policies
• The One Health movement
• Maryland’s All-Payer Model initiative
• Health equity and racial justice
• Global health policies and development
• Policymaking and the influence of special interests

This primer prepares future leaders to address health policy issues that will affect the patients in their organizations while also contributing to the creation of a better healthcare system overall.