Health Think Tanks: A Catalyst for Influencing Policy?

In 2005 Pakistan's first health think tank the Health Policy Forum was developed by the local non-government organisation Heartfile. A multi-sectorial membership delivered several academic outputs to the national health policy makers to focus on strengthening current health systems. The main findings of this case study revealed that one of the main strengths of the Health Policy Forum was its leadership with four main themes to enhance its effectiveness. These included garnering inclusive ownership of cause, creating structures that reflect contextual factors, promoting participatory and visionary leadership, and ensuring policy consistency so that outputs come to fruition. A conceptual framework was developed and revised to identify and understand relationships, roles and strategies to guide other health think tanks from developing countries to positively influence their health policy makers.