Learning from Policy Failure? Health Action Zones in England

It is widely recognized that the evidence base for reducing health inequalities is relatively weak. Although many countries have invested in major policy interventions that might be expected to have an impact on the distribution of health outcomes, policymakers and researchers have not always found effective ways of learning from major social initiatives. In an ideal world, interventions would be designed and implemented in a way that allowed robust scientific findings to be produced. But while attempts to move in that direction should continue, UK experiences also suggest that greater efforts have to be made to learn from new policies and initiatives that are often conceived and delivered with evaluation well down their list of objectives.