Equity, Trust, and Ethics in Public Policy Design: An Interdisciplinary Framework for Human-Centered Governance

Introduction: Public policy effectiveness increasingly depends on its capacity to balance equity, ethical legitimacy, behavioral compliance, and institutional trust. Contemporary governance challenges— ranging from health system reform to technology access and moral- legal debates—highlight the need for human-centered public policy frameworks. Methods: This research adopts a qualitative synthesis methodology integrating five peer-reviewed public policy studies across diverse geopolitical contexts. Comparative policy analysis was conducted to examine governance models, policy instruments, actor dynamics, and societal outcomes. Results: Findings demonstrate that policies grounded in equity, ethical reasoning, and behavioral trust outperform coercive or technocratic approaches in achieving sustainable compliance and social legitimacy. Health policy reform, digital access equity, and crisis governance outcomes were strongly shaped by institutional transparency and normative alignment. Conclusion: Human-centered public policy requires interdisciplinary integration of ethics, behavioral science, and governance theory. Policymakers must move beyond narrow efficiency metrics toward trust-based, equity-oriented policy design to support long-term human progress.