APPEAL Policy Change Model

While it may be necessary for AA and NH/PI communities and other priority populations to initially focus their health efforts on individual level behavioral changes, it is critical that public health efforts strive toward creating policy or systems level changes as well.1 Policy level change ultimately has a greater impact on a larger part of the community and is usually more sustainable and cost effective over time. For this reason, APPEAL has developed a 4-prong Policy Change Model to address policy or systems change on multiple levels.

The APPEAL Policy Change Model focuses on four levels of policy change including:2

  • The community level, where tobacco or obesity is not always a high priority.
  • The mainstream institutional level, where priority populations have not been the priority.
  • The legislative level, where neither priority populations nor tobacco nor obesity are priorities.
  • The corporate level (i.e. tobacco industry or food industry), where priority populations have been the priority.

Each of the following sections describes in detail what APPEAL has done on each of the four levels of policy change:

  • Parity: This level describes policy work affecting mainstream institutions and includes the activities of the Alliance on Advancing Parity & Leadership for Priority Populations (Parity Alliance).
  • Public Policy: This level of the Policy Change Model describes policy work at the legislative level, including policy bulletins and legislative updates.
  • Corporate Accountability: This level focuses on policy work at the corporate (i.e. the tobacco or food industry) level and addresses the influence these industries have on the AA & NH/PI community and priority populations.

To see how this Model fits into the larger APPEAL Framework, please see the APPEAL Framework page.

1Lew R. Addressing the Impact of Tobacco on Asian Americans: A Model for Change. In Bateman WB, Abesamis-Mendoza N, and Ho-Asjoe H (eds), Praeger Handbook of Asian American Health Taking Notice and Taking Action, ABC-CLIO LLC, 2009.

2Lew, R., and Tanjasiri, S.P. Slowing the epidemic of tobacco use among Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. American Journal of Public Health 93, no. 5 (2003):764-768.