EUnetHTA Adaptation Glossary (beta)

A policy is an overall plan embracing general goals or ideas. It will almost always include an objective and some method of action selected among alternatives to guide decisions.

A policy question is the object for the overall policy or related one of the alternatives. For example a heath policy could be treatment of patients’ diabetes and a policy question related to that policy could be how often the patients with diabetes type II should be screened for retinopathy.

A conflict of interest is a situation in which a corporation or individual is in a position to exploit a professional or official capacity for their corporate or personal benefit. Competing interests can make it difficult to act impartially. Even if there is no evidence of improper actions, a conflict of interest can undermine confidence in the ability of that person to use his/her position with proper ethics.