Is there a role of epidemiology in health policy formulation?

The core functions of public health stresses the importance of assessment in meeting the substance of public health, which are disease control and health promotions. The assessment component of the public health core function is achieved through the joint effort of epidemiology and biostatistics. Health policy ensures that public health services are provided for the populations in need of such services. The understanding of the populations in need depends on the magnitude of the health problems and the existing resources to address such problems. Therefore findings from epidemiologic studies should serve as the building blocks for health policy formulation and implementation. In the light of this, unless policy formulation builds on health research findings that utilized sound epidemiologic principles and methods in their designs and reality in their statistical modeling of the data, health issues will remain unaddressed appropriately in our nation.