Researching Health for All in South Australia: Reflections on Sustainability and Partnership

The research involved a collaboration between University researchers and public servants who were involved in implementing Health in All Policies (HiAP) in South Australia. Drawing on our published work about this research, our chapter describes the contribution our work has made to knowledge, to HiAP implementation, and to methodological and theoretical approaches for studying complex policy interventions. We examined the reasons HiAP was established, the contextual and policy factors that made this possible, and the ways in which the initiative navigated a changing policy context. High-level support including from the Premier and an emphasis on supporting other sectors through “win-win” strategies designed to achieve benefits for health and the other sectors were crucial. Trust was also important. We used program theory to determine HiAP’s likely impacts on health and equity. We supported the program logic with a range of different policy theories including those relating to trust, agenda-setting, policy processes, and implementation norm changes. We used institutional theory to examine how a mix of ideational, institutional, and actor factors combined to make the intersectoral action initiated by HiAP either effective or not. These theories were used to assist our understanding of what makes for successful intersectoral action.