The politics of agenda setting in international health: Child health versus adult health in developing countries

Abstract This paper compares the politics of agenda setting in international health policy, for the issues of child health and adult health, along five political streams: organizational, symbolic, economic, scientific and politician politics. The approach is a modified version of Kingdon's ‘garbage can model’ of how public policy agendas are set. The analysis shows that the five political streams all favoured child health over adult health as an issue on the international health policy agenda, until recently. In the early 1990s, the World Bank has asserted greater influence on this agenda than previously, with a concerted effort to shift the focus from child health to adult health and to give greater attention to the preventive aspects of adult health in poor countries.