Carmen Huckel Schneider - Menzies Centre for Health Policy and Economics, Faculty of Medicine and Health, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia
Sarika Parambath - Menzies Centre for Health Policy and Economics, Faculty of Medicine and Health, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia
James Young - Center for Muscle and Joint Health, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark
Swatee Jain - Sydney Musculoskeletal, Bone & Joint Health Alliance, Faculty of Medicine and Health, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia
Helen Slater - Curtin School of Allied Health, and Curtin enAble Institute, Faculty of Health Sciences, Curtin University, Perth, WA, Australia
Saurab Sharma - School of Health Sciences, Faculty of Medicine and Health, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia
Deborah Kopansky-Giles - Department of Research, Canadian Memorial Chiropractic College, Toronto, ON, Canada
Lyn March - Florance and Cope Professorial Department of Rheumatology, Royal North Shore Hospital and Kolling Institute, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia
Andrew Briggs - Curtin School of Allied Health, and enAble Institute, Faculty of Health Sciences, Curtin University, Perth, WA, Australia

Background  Global policy to guide action on musculoskeletal (MSK) health is in a nascent phase. Lagging behind other non-communicable diseases (NCDs) there is currently little global policy to assist governments to develop national approaches to MSK health. Considering the importance of comparison and learning for global policy development, we aimed to perform a comparative analysis of national MSK policies to identify areas of innovation and draw common themes and principles that could guide MSK health policy.Methods  Multi-modal search strategy incorporating a systematic online search targeted at the ۳۰ most populated nations; a call to networked experts; a specified question in a related eDelphi questionnaire; and snowballing methods. Extracted data were organised using an a priori framework adapted from the World Health Organization (WHO) Building Blocks and further inductive coding. Subsequently, texts were open coded and thematically analysed to derive specific sub-themes and principles underlying texts within each theme, serving as abstracted, transferable concepts for future global policy.Results  The search yielded ۱۶۵ documents with ۴۱ retained after removal of duplicates and exclusions. Only three documents were comprehensive national strategies addressing MSK health. The most common conditions addressed in the documents were pain (non-cancer), low back pain, occupational health, inflammatory conditions, and osteoarthritis. Across eight categories, we derived ۴۷ sub-themes with transferable principles that could guide global policy for: service delivery; workforce; medicines and technologies; financing; data and information systems; leadership and governance; citizens, consumers and communities; and research and innovation.Conclusion  There are few examples of national strategic policy to address MSK health; however, many countries are moving towards this by documenting the burden of disease and developing policies for MSK services. This review found a breadth of principles that can add to this existing work and may be adopted to develop comprehensive system-wide MSK health approaches at national and global levels.

Policy Content Analysis, Global Policy, Musculoskeletal Health, Policy Learning