Occupational therapy is a health profession that is concerned with what people do. It is aimed at preventing illness and disability, promoting adaptation to life changes, and improving the quality of life. Occupational therapists work with individuals, groups, agencies, organizations, and schools in publicly-funded or private practice to help the clients live a full life with meaningful occupations. Therefore, it is important that occupational therapists understand and be proactive on emerging public policy to help protect and support the occupational well-being of the clients.

The objective of this paper is to familiarize occupational therapy practitioners with the themes and approaches of policy sciences, especially policy implementation and evaluation. This paper is a review of current theoretical literature, which focuses on (a) the historical background to help the readers conceptualize the thematic framework as a natural development and evolution of policy sciences, and (b) a specific plan of analysis that is grouped into six major themes—equity and fairness, ethics and values, evaluative process of policy implementation, relationships among implementation p

The authors highlighted the importance of going to the beginning of the policy process to assess the legislative context that created a policy’s enabling legislation and statutes. They ask the reader to consider how well the originating context and causal theories connect to the implemented policy on the ground. Furthermore, they emphasize the need to consider the effects of endogenous and exogenous policy influences, such as bureaucratic skill and capability, advocacy groups, and economic conditions.

Several of the readings provide insight and direction into the research design theme. Cook (1984) stressed the necessity of developing a strong research theory that works to “prioritize among research questions and also among research methods” (p. 205).

Reamer (1986) stated that an ethical approach to right and wrong is necessary in order to decide if the implementation of a policy is morally justified. He asserted that to understand contemporary policy science, it is essential to recognize the ideological, empirical, and ethical grounds on which policies are created. In the final analysis, Reamer (1986) noted that both ideological and empirical policy formulation and implementation cannot be justified on their own, because they inherently lack the ability to incorporate ethical analysis, and should be used only “to inform judgments that are based on ethical reasoning” (p. 242).

The authors continued with a practical outline of essential independent variables affecting the implementation process that are important for analysts. These variables fall into three descriptive categories: (a) tractability of the policy problem—the extent in which it is possible to accomplish policy goals, (b) ability of policy statutes to structure and support implementation—factors that can be controlled in the formulation process, and (c) ability of non-statutory variables to affect implementation—factors that cannot be controlled by formulators (Mazmanian & Sabatier, 1989b, p. 22). Notably, they illustrated how these variable categories continually influence the developmental stages of the implementation process, which proceed from policy outputs by agency, target group compliance, actual policy outcomes, perceived policy outcomes, and statute revision (Mazmanian & Sabatier, 1989b, p. 22). Of particular significance to these authors and Winter (1990) is the requirement of the analyst to discover the underlying causal theory of policy decisions that structure implementation. Winter (1990) stated that a valid and accurate causal theory is imperative to enacting policy that will affect the intended change. Mazmanian and Sabatier (1989 b) also noted that effective causal theories incorporate understanding of the relationship between institutional intervention and achievement of policy objectives. They were very clear about the importance of determining a policy structure’s causal theory, asserting that “inadequate causal theories lie behind many of the cases of implementation failure” (Mazmanian & Sabatier, 1989b, pp. 25-26).

Maynard-Moody, Musheno, and Palumbo (1990) provided a different perspective, viewing the influence of the street-level worker on policy implementation as paradoxical: they are allowed flexibility and innovation, and yet often shown indifference and abuse (p. 833). Unlike the top-down school of implementation theorists who argued that greater hierarchical control leads to an increase in street-level discretion and effectiveness, the authors offered research that supports Lipsky’s contention that enhanced bureaucratic directives fail to increase the effectiveness of street-level workers (Maynard-Moody et al., 1990, pp. 834-835). Their bottoms-up approach argued that “perspectives of street-level workers in programmatic decisions are one realistic alternative to managerial control” and conclude that implementation is enhanced with a higher degree of street-level influence (Maynard-Moody et al., 1

Some topics in this essay:
Mazmanian Sabatier, Musheno Palumbo, Sabatier Jenkins-Smith, Fairness Blanchard, Merriam Lasswell, Ripley Franklin, Synthesis Occupational, Research Designs, Players Scherberle’s, Background Levin’s, policy implementation, mazmanian sabatier, garson 1986, policy sciences, ripley franklin, public policy, process policy, policy implementation evaluation, implementation evaluation, policy science, implementation process, process policy implementation, mazmanian sabatier 1989c, ripley franklin 1986a, baumgartner jones 1993,