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Money or mental health: the cost of alleviating psychological distress with monetary compensation versus psychological therapy.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
AbstractMoney is the default way in which intangible losses, such as pain and suffering, are currently valued and compensated in law courts. Economists have suggested that subjective well-being regressions can be used to guide compensation payouts for psychological distress following traumatic life events. We bring together studies from law, economic, psychology and medical journals to show that alleviating psychological distress through psychological therapy could be at least 32 times more cost effective than financial compensation. This result is not only important for law courts but has important implications for pu...
Source: Health Economics, Policy, and Law - November 18, 2009 Category: Health Management Authors: Boyce CJ, Wood AM Tags: Health Econ Policy Law Source Type: journals

New Zealand's Primary Health Care Strategy: early effects of the new financing and payment system for general practice and future challenges.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Since 2001, implementation of a New Zealand's Primary Health Care Strategy (the Strategy) has led to an increase in the proportion of primary health care services which are publicly funded, the development of 82 primary health organisations (PHOs) to oversee primary health care services and universal public capitation funding of PHOs. This approach has replaced the previous system of fee-for service targeted public subsidies paid to individual general practitioners (GPs). Patient copayments, although at a reduced level but still set by individual practitioners, have remained a core feature of the system.This paper focu...
Source: Health Economics, Policy, and Law - October 30, 2009 Category: Health Management Authors: Cumming J, Mays N Tags: Health Econ Policy Law Source Type: journals

What factors influence seniors' desire for choice among health insurance options? Survey results on the Medicare prescription drug benefit.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Questions about the design of the new US Medicare prescription drug benefit were raised even before its passage, where one of the most heated issues has been the number of plans offered to beneficiaries. Whether beneficiaries believe that there should be extensive or limited choice is still an open question. To study this issue, we analyzed data from the Kaiser Family Foundation/Harvard School of Public Health Survey, which included 718 individuals aged 65 years and above. The survey asked these older adults (i) whether they prefer having dozens of plans or for Medicare to offer a restricted number of plans and (ii) wh...
Source: Health Economics, Policy, and Law - October 30, 2009 Category: Health Management Authors: Rice T, Hanoch Y, Cummings J Tags: Health Econ Policy Law Source Type: journals

Choice and competition in publicly funded health care.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
There are four basic models of health service delivery: those that rely on trust, on command and control, on voice, and on choice and competition. All have their merits and demerits; but there are both theoretical and empirical arguments for preferring choice and competition in many situations. However, the relevant policies do have to be properly designed. PMID: 19715629 [PubMed - in process] (Source: Health Economics, Policy, and Law)
Source: Health Economics, Policy, and Law - September 3, 2009 Category: Health Management Authors: Le Grand J Tags: Health Econ Policy Law Source Type: journals

The case against choice and competition.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Choice and competition are central planks of the English government's health reforms and modernisation programme. Wales and Scotland have chosen a different path, which calls into question the suggestion that in an age of consumerism there is no other way to secure overdue changes in the provision and management of health care to improve their quality and responsiveness to user preferences. Yet pro-market enthusiasts pursue their agenda in the face of evidence that calls into question the claims they make. It is a curious position for a government that is wedded to evidence-based policy to find itself in. The policy pu...
Source: Health Economics, Policy, and Law - September 3, 2009 Category: Health Management Authors: Hunter DJ Tags: Health Econ Policy Law Source Type: journals

Invisible hand? More like post-modern mush.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
PMID: 19715631 [PubMed - in process] (Source: Health Economics, Policy, and Law)
Source: Health Economics, Policy, and Law - September 3, 2009 Category: Health Management Authors: Dixon J Tags: Health Econ Policy Law Source Type: journals

The rise of pragmatism in state/market debate.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Discussion about the relative role of public and private in health care has evolved substantially across Europe since the 1980s. The previous, broadly ideological debate about state 'versus' market has been superceded by pragmatic considerations on how best to combine state 'and' market to achieve specific health sector outcomes. The London School of Economics debate about expanded patient choice demonstrated the extent to which pragmatism has gained the upper hand. PMID: 19715632 [PubMed - in process] (Source: Health Economics, Policy, and Law)
Source: Health Economics, Policy, and Law - September 3, 2009 Category: Health Management Authors: Saltman RB Tags: Health Econ Policy Law Source Type: journals

Response to Hunter, Dixon and Saltman.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
PMID: 19715633 [PubMed - in process] (Source: Health Economics, Policy, and Law)
Source: Health Economics, Policy, and Law - September 3, 2009 Category: Health Management Authors: Le Grand J Tags: Health Econ Policy Law Source Type: journals

Value based pricing for NHS medicines: magic bullet, counterfeit treatment or the mixture as before?Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
PMID: 19715634 [PubMed - in process] (Source: Health Economics, Policy, and Law)
Source: Health Economics, Policy, and Law - September 3, 2009 Category: Health Management Authors: Taylor D, Craig T Tags: Health Econ Policy Law Source Type: journals

Choice experiments in health: the good, the bad, the ugly and toward a brighter future.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Compared to many applied areas of economics, health economics has a strong tradition in eliciting and using stated preferences (SP) in policy analysis. Discrete choice experiments (DCEs) are one SP method increasingly used in this area. Literature on DCEs in health and more generally has grown rapidly since the mid-1990s. Applications of DCEs in health have come a long way, but to date few have been 'best practice', in part because 'best practice' has been somewhat of a moving target. The purpose of this paper is to briefly survey the history of DCEs and the state of current knowledge, identify and discuss knowledge ga...
Source: Health Economics, Policy, and Law - September 3, 2009 Category: Health Management Authors: Louviere JJ, Lancsar E Tags: Health Econ Policy Law Source Type: journals

Does competition among general practitioners increase or decrease the consumption of specialist health care?Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
This article adds to the literature in two ways; first by testing out different operationalization of capacity and competition among GPs, and then by testing out effects of capacity and competition on use of specialist health care services as this is disaggregated into ambulatory and inpatient activities. The empirical tests indicate that GP capacity in itself does not affect use of specialist health care services. Increased competitions among GPs do, however, reduce the use of ambulatory care while the effects on the use of inpatient services are unaffected. PMID: 19712538 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher] (Source: ...
Source: Health Economics, Policy, and Law - August 27, 2009 Category: Health Management Authors: Tjerbo T Tags: Health Econ Policy Law Source Type: journals

Contingent valuation: what needs to be done?Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Contingent valuation (CV) has been argued to have theoretical advantages over other approaches for benefit valuation used by health economists. Yet, in reality, the technique appears not to have realised these advantages when applied to health-care issues, such that its influence in decision-making at national levels has been non-existent within the health sector. This is not a result of a lack of methodological work in the area, which has continued to flourish. Rather, it is a result of such activities being undertaken in a rather uncoordinated and unsystematic fashion, leading CV to be akin to a 'ship without a sail'...
Source: Health Economics, Policy, and Law - August 25, 2009 Category: Health Management Authors: Smith RD, Sach TH Tags: Health Econ Policy Law Source Type: journals

The complexities of negotiating governance change: introducing managerialism in Italy.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Since the beginning of the 1990s, health policy in Italy has been characterised by continuous reform as reflected by the frequency of new measures. Importantly, the reforms have changed considerably many aspects of the health-care system, including the governance of medical performance. The new measures fall into two types: regionalisation and transformation of local providers into 'health-care enterprises'. In relation to the governance of medical performance, more specifically, the reforms have entailed the introduction of budgeting and quality assurance, the creation of new managerial roles, and the transformation o...
Source: Health Economics, Policy, and Law - June 2, 2009 Category: Health Management Authors: Tousijn W, Giorgino VM Tags: Health Econ Policy Law Source Type: journals

Reforming medical governance in Europe. What is it about institutions?Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
This article presents a cross-national analytical framework for understanding current attempts to reform medical governance - in particular, those by third parties to control the practice of medicine. The framework pays particular attention to the ways in which institutions shape policy reform. The article also outlines the main comparative findings of case studies of selected reforms and associated processes of negotiations in Denmark, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom. These four countries were selected because they are characterised by theoretically interesting variations in the institutional contexts of medical gov...
Source: Health Economics, Policy, and Law - May 25, 2009 Category: Health Management Authors: Burau V, Wilsford D, France G Tags: Health Econ Policy Law Source Type: journals

Negotiating reform at an arm's length from the state: Disease Management Programmes and the introduction of clinical standards in Germany.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Studies of German health policy often highlight institutional constraints to reform. However, based on a case study of the introduction of clinical standards as part of the Disease Management Programmes for chronic illnesses, this article suggests that negotiating reform at an arm's length from the state can also lead to governance change, although the strengthening of hierarchy is not as prominent as that in some of the countries studied in this special issue. As such, the case of Germany offers interesting insights into the politics of governance change that occur in the shadow, but largely without the direct involve...
Source: Health Economics, Policy, and Law - May 25, 2009 Category: Health Management Authors: Burau V Tags: Health Econ Policy Law Source Type: journals

Competition and compromise in negotiating the new governance of medical performance: the clinical governance and revalidation policies in the UK.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
This article explores the development of two policies for the governance of medical performance in the UK: the Department of Health's (DH) clinical governance policy and the medical profession's revalidation policy. After discussing the institutional context in which each of these policies emerged, we examine how and why they were constructed. While the clinical governance policy was in large part a swift reaction to high-profile cases of medical misconduct in the late 1990s, revalidation was the profession's response to the politicisation of its self-regulatory apparatus. The profession took notably longer than the DH to ...
Source: Health Economics, Policy, and Law - May 25, 2009 Category: Health Management Authors: Fenton L, Salter B Tags: Health Econ Policy Law Source Type: journals

The interplay between central and sub-central levels: the development of a systemic standard based programme for governing medical performance in Denmark.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
This paper analyses the introduction of a systemic standards based programme for governing medical performance in Denmark. The programme combines clinical, organisational, and patient related standards and measures, and contains both external evaluation and self-assessment based on standards. The substance of the programme is new compared to the previous decentralised or professionally driven state of affairs that was based on a largely voluntary introduction of clinical standards, combined with a case-by-case evaluation of malpractice incidents. The programme strengthens hierarchy-based forms of governance; these co-e...
Source: Health Economics, Policy, and Law - May 25, 2009 Category: Health Management Authors: Vrangbaek K Tags: Health Econ Policy Law Source Type: journals

Capacity and authority: comments on governing doctors and health care.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
This stimulating set of articles provides intriguing information and comments about medical governance in four countries. The commentary argues that the typology of governance approaches is not as useful as one would want for understanding either the political prospects or policy effects of governance measures. The politics of governance measures is distinctly related to efforts to avoid blame, and the effects of measures are better understood in terms of state capacity and a term, 'authority', that advocates of 'governance' usually avoid. Close attention to the requisites of authority provides some insight into the pa...
Source: Health Economics, Policy, and Law - May 25, 2009 Category: Health Management Authors: White J Tags: Health Econ Policy Law Source Type: journals

Personal responsibility in the NHS Constitution and the social determinants of health approach: competitive or complementary?Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
PMID: 19267958 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher] (Source: Health Economics, Policy, and Law)
Source: Health Economics, Policy, and Law - March 9, 2009 Category: Health Management Authors: Schmidt H Tags: Health Econ Policy Law Source Type: journals

Income and the use of health care: an empirical study of Egypt and Lebanon.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
This article examines the effect of income on the use of outpatient and inpatient health care services in Egypt and Lebanon using econometric analysis of cross-sectional data from the World Health Organization. In light of noticeable differences in income and public financing arrangements, these two countries serve as interesting case studies. Multivariate regression results suggest that Egyptian respondents were more likely to use health services than their Lebanese counterparts, holding all else constant, and that this effect was particularly evident for outpatient care. A higher income and insurance increased the likeli...
Source: Health Economics, Policy, and Law - March 3, 2009 Category: Health Management Authors: Elgazzar H Tags: Health Econ Policy Law Source Type: journals

Modernizing concepts of access and equity.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
PMID: 19250604 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher] (Source: Health Economics, Policy, and Law)
Source: Health Economics, Policy, and Law - March 2, 2009 Category: Health Management Authors: Gulliford M Tags: Health Econ Policy Law Source Type: journals

Reimbursement systems, organisational forms and patient selection: Evidence from day surgery in Norway.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Cream skimming can be defined as the selective treatment of patients that demand few resources while providing high economic refunds. We test whether cream skimming occurs after the introduction of DRG-based activity-based financing (ABF) in Norway in 1997 and if the problem further increased after the 2002 organizational reform when hospitals were turned into trusts. The DRG-system offers the same economic reimbursement for patients classified within day-surgical DRGs irrespective of whether the patient receives same-day treatment or in-patient care over several days. This provides potential for cream skimming and all...
Source: Health Economics, Policy, and Law - February 25, 2009 Category: Health Management Authors: Martinussen PE, Hagen TP Tags: Health Econ Policy Law Source Type: journals

Some pain, no gain: experiences with the no-claim rebate in the Dutch health care system.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
To contain expenditures in an increasingly demand driven health care system, in 2005 a no-claim rebate was introduced in the Dutch health insurance system. Since demand-side cost sharing is a very controversial issue, the no-claim rebate was launched as a consumer friendly bonus system to reward prudent utilization of health services. Internationally, the introduction of a mandatory no-claim rebate in a social health insurance scheme is unprecedented. Consumers were entitled to an annual rebate of 255 if no claims were made. During the year, all health care expenses except for GP visits and maternity care were deducted...
Source: Health Economics, Policy, and Law - February 25, 2009 Category: Health Management Authors: Holland J, VAN Exel NJ, Schut FT, Brouwer WB Tags: Health Econ Policy Law Source Type: journals

Explicit incorporation of equity considerations into economic evaluation of public health interventions - reply to Richardson and Shiell.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
PMID: 19216831 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher] (Source: Health Economics, Policy, and Law)
Source: Health Economics, Policy, and Law - February 16, 2009 Category: Health Management Authors: Cookson R, Drummond M, Weatherly H Tags: Health Econ Policy Law Source Type: journals

Still waiting for the great leap forward.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
PMID: 19216832 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher] (Source: Health Economics, Policy, and Law)
Source: Health Economics, Policy, and Law - February 16, 2009 Category: Health Management Authors: Shiell A Tags: Health Econ Policy Law Source Type: journals

Is the incorporation of equity considerations into economic evaluation really so simple? A comment on Cookson, Drummond and Weatherly.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
PMID: 19216833 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher] (Source: Health Economics, Policy, and Law)
Source: Health Economics, Policy, and Law - February 16, 2009 Category: Health Management Authors: Richardson J Tags: Health Econ Policy Law Source Type: journals

Explicit incorporation of equity considerations into economic evaluation of public health interventions.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Health equity is one of the main avowed objectives of public health policy across the world. Yet economic evaluations in public health (like those in health care more generally) continue to focus on maximizing health gain. Health equity considerations are rarely mentioned. Health economists rely on the quasi-egalitarian value judgment that 'a QALY is a QALY' - that is QALYs are equally weighted and the same health outcome is worth the same no matter how it is achieved or to whom it accrues. This value judgment is questionable in many important circumstances in public health. For example, policy-makers may place rather ...
Source: Health Economics, Policy, and Law - February 16, 2009 Category: Health Management Authors: Cookson R, Drummond M, Weatherly H Tags: Health Econ Policy Law Source Type: journals

Has the time come for cost-effectiveness analysis in US health care?Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
This study sought to clarify the extent to which CEA is understood and accepted by US decision makers, including regulators, private and public insurers, and purchasers, and to identify their points of difficulty with its use. We conducted half-day workshops with a sample of six California-based health care organizations that spanned a range of public and private perspectives regarding coverage of health care services. Each workshop included an overview of CEA methods, a priority-setting exercise that asked participants (acting as 'social decision makers') to rank condition treatment pairs prior to and following provision ...
Source: Health Economics, Policy, and Law - February 9, 2009 Category: Health Management Authors: Bryan S, Sofaer S, Siegelberg T, Gold M Tags: Health Econ Policy Law Source Type: journals

Should prospective payments be differentiated for public and private healthcare providers?Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
This article describes the constraints that could cause public and private provider costs to differ for reasons outside their control. These constraints may be regulatory in nature, such as taxes and performance management regimens, or relate to the production process, such as input costs, the provision of emergency care, and case mix issues. Most of these exogenous cost differentials can be rectified by adjustments either to the regulatory system or to the payment method. However, differences in capital costs appear less tractable and further investigation into possible solutions is warranted. PMID: 19195409 [PubMed -...
Source: Health Economics, Policy, and Law - February 5, 2009 Category: Health Management Authors: Mason A, Street A, Miraldo M, Siciliani L Tags: Health Econ Policy Law Source Type: journals

Is it not time for health economists to rethink equity and access?Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
This article considers two key issues in health economics regarding the question of equity. First, why have health economists not resolved better the issue of what are equity and access? Second, the paper draws attention to the relative lack of analyses of equity concerns outside of health care. The question of whose values should prevail in equity is also addressed. On the first issue, there is an obsession with quantification in economics with the result that in analysing equity, in practice often 'use' has been substituted for 'access'. The problem of defining access has thereby been by-passed. This has taken the pressu...
Source: Health Economics, Policy, and Law - February 4, 2009 Category: Health Management Authors: Mooney G Tags: Health Econ Policy Law Source Type: journals

Evaluating integrated healthcare for refugees and hosts in an African context.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
This paper argues on ethical and practical grounds for more widespread use of an integrated approach to refugee healthcare, and proposes a basic model of assessment for integrated systems. A defining element of an integrated approach is an equal ability by refugee and host nationals to access the same healthcare resources from the same providers. This differs fundamentally from parallel care, currently the predominant practice in Africa. The authors put forward a general model for evaluation of integrated healthcare with four criteria: (1) improved health outcomes for both hosts and refugees, (2) increased social integ...
Source: Health Economics, Policy, and Law - January 30, 2009 Category: Health Management Authors: Tuepker A, Chi C Tags: Health Econ Policy Law Source Type: journals

Access as a policy-relevant concept in low- and middle-income countries.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
We present a conceptual framework that defines access to health care as the empowerment of an individual to use health care and as a multidimensional concept based on the interaction (or degree of fit) between health care systems and individuals, households, and communities. Three dimensions of access are identified: availability, affordability, and acceptability, through which access can be evaluated directly instead of focusing on utilisation of care as a proxy for access. We present the case for the comprehensive evaluation of health care systems as well as the dimensions of access, and the factors underlying each dimen...
Source: Health Economics, Policy, and Law - January 30, 2009 Category: Health Management Authors: McIntyre D, Thiede M, Birch S Tags: Health Econ Policy Law Source Type: journals

Access to health care services - an English policy perspective.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
The English government has given a commitment to improving access to health care services for particular groups perceived as being under-served, or served inappropriately, by existing services. In this article four examples of policies aimed at improving access are considered: enhancing the supply of services to under-served areas, changing the organization of services, setting targets to improve access, and empowering people to make choices. Policies aimed at improving access will work only if they address the source of inequities, which means identifying the key barriers to access and these barriers are unlikely to b...
Source: Health Economics, Policy, and Law - January 30, 2009 Category: Health Management Authors: Goddard M Tags: Health Econ Policy Law Source Type: journals

Product development partnerships (PDPs) for neglected diseases: considerations on governance.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
PMID: 19099614 [PubMed - in process] (Source: Health Economics, Policy, and Law)
Source: Health Economics, Policy, and Law - December 24, 2008 Category: Health Management Authors: Sorenson C Tags: Health Econ Policy Law Source Type: journals

Patient choice and access to primary physician services in Norway.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
In this study we investigated the influence of excess supply on patient access and the mobility of patients between primary physicians in Norway. The analyses were performed on data from two comprehensive national surveys. Access to physicians is better for physicians who have spare capacity than for physicians who have a lack of capacity. Patients take advantage of their possibilities for choice. They move from physicians who have too little capacity to physicians who have spare capacity. Patient choice means that patients are not 'stuck' with physicians who have too little capacity to provide adequate services for their ...
Source: Health Economics, Policy, and Law - December 24, 2008 Category: Health Management Authors: Grytten J, Sørensen RJ Tags: Health Econ Policy Law Source Type: journals

Policy choice or economic fundamentals: what drives the public-private health expenditure balance in Canada?Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
The public share of Canadian total health expenditure declined between 1975 and 2005 but categories such as physicians stayed constant while drugs, other institutions, and capital spending saw increases. Regressions find the key determinants of the public share to be: the relative price of health care, per capita income, federal transfers, proportion of population over age 65, provincial dummy variables, political parties, the onset of the Canada Health Act and the Canada Health and Social Transfer (CHST), and a time trend invoking technological change. Increasing income inequality is not a factor eroding the public sh...
Source: Health Economics, Policy, and Law - December 24, 2008 Category: Health Management Authors: Matteo LD Tags: Health Econ Policy Law Source Type: journals

Small area variations and welfare loss in the use of outpatient antibiotics.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
This article seeks to explain local variations in the use of antibiotics in the community and to assess the welfare loss due to heterogeneous attitudes towards the risk of bacterial resistance. Quarterly data on antibiotic sales from 240 small areas in Switzerland over the course of one year are used. An econometric ad-hoc model with spatial lags is proposed in which the demand for antibiotics varies according to the socioeconomic characteristics of the population, the incidence of infections, antibiotic price and local health care supply. Using residual variations we then evaluate the welfare loss due to varying antibioti...
Source: Health Economics, Policy, and Law - December 24, 2008 Category: Health Management Authors: Filippini M, Masiero G, Moschetti K Tags: Health Econ Policy Law Source Type: journals

The legal framework for health care quality assurance in Germany.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
This article describes the status quo in quality assurance in Germany and analyses the changes introduced into the SHI (Statutory Health Insurance) system with the Modernization Act of 2004. First, a theoretical framework for quality assurance that is consistent with the logic of the German social market economy is outlined. The analysis then describes new actors and their duties in the field of quality assurance, highlighting improvements in regulation and the regulatory instruments applied. Although the strategy for quality assurance is still dominated by regulation and corporatist bodies, the latest reform acts of 2004 ...
Source: Health Economics, Policy, and Law - December 24, 2008 Category: Health Management Authors: Sauerland D Tags: Health Econ Policy Law Source Type: journals

Towards an alternative economics of health care.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
This article examines important peculiarities of health care that are relatively neglected in the literature. Some of these concern health care needs: while health itself is a universal need, needs for health care provision are largely involuntary, varied, and idiosyncratic. These issues have important consequences for the planning of health care systems and the extent of transaction costs in any market-based system. These factors, combined with the inherent dynamism of modern health care needs and capabilities, create an opening for alternative approaches to health care economics. PMID: 19099619 [PubMed - in process] ...
Source: Health Economics, Policy, and Law - December 24, 2008 Category: Health Management Authors: Hodgson GM Tags: Health Econ Policy Law Source Type: journals

Global health challenges in the pharmaceutical world.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
PMID: 19099620 [PubMed - in process] (Source: Health Economics, Policy, and Law)
Source: Health Economics, Policy, and Law - December 24, 2008 Category: Health Management Authors: Abraham J Tags: Health Econ Policy Law Source Type: journals

Social capital, economics, and health: new evidence.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
In introducing this Special Issue on Social Capital and Health, this article tracks the popularization of the term and sheds light on the controversy surrounding the term and its definitions. It sets out four mechanisms that link social capital with health: making information available to community members, impacting social norms, enhancing the health care services and their accessibility in a community, and offering psychosocial support networks. Approaches to the measurement of social capital include the Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey (SCCBS) developed by Robert Putnam, and the Petris Social Capital Index ...
Source: Health Economics, Policy, and Law - September 17, 2008 Category: Health Management Authors: Scheffler RM, Brown TT Tags: Health Econ Policy Law Source Type: journals

An economic model of social capital and health.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
This paper presents an economic model to connect with the substantial empirical literature on social capital and health that exists largely outside of economics. Representative papers from that literature are reviewed and these show that disagreements exist on the nature and definition of social capital. The paper presents a new line of reasoning to support the view of social capital as a network of interpersonal bonds to include the bonds of family and close friends, not just the community at large. It then adapts and extends the work of Becker and Murphy on social economics to explain the demand for health goods as w...
Source: Health Economics, Policy, and Law - September 17, 2008 Category: Health Management Authors: Folland S Tags: Health Econ Policy Law Source Type: journals

An exploratory study of associations between social capital and self-assessed health in Norway.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
The objective of this study is to estimate associations between social capital and health when other factors are controlled for. Data from the standard-of-living survey by Statistics Norway are merged with data from several other sources. The merged files combine data at the individual level with data that describe indicators of community-level social capital related to each person voting participation in local elections - is positively associated with self-assessed health in the cross-sectional study and in the panel data study. While we find that religious activity at the community-level has a positive effect in the cros...
Source: Health Economics, Policy, and Law - September 17, 2008 Category: Health Management Authors: Iversen T Tags: Health Econ Policy Law Source Type: journals

Access to psycho-social resources and health: exploratory findings from a survey of the French population.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
We study the psycho-social determinants of self-assessed health in order to explain social inequalities in health in France. We use a unique general population survey to assess the respective impact on self-assessed health status of subjective perceptions of social capital, social support, and sense of control, controlling for standard socio-demographic factors (SES, income, education, age, and gender). The survey is unique in that it provides a variety of measures of self-perceived psycho-social resources (trust and civic engagement, social support, sense of control, and self-esteem). We find empirical support for the...
Source: Health Economics, Policy, and Law - September 17, 2008 Category: Health Management Authors: Jusot F, Grignon M, Dourgnon P Tags: Health Econ Policy Law Source Type: journals

Aging, social capital, and health care utilization in Canada.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
This paper examines relationships between aging, social capital, and healthcare utilization. Cross-sectional data from the 2001 Canadian Community Health Survey and the Canadian Census are used to estimate a two-part model for both GP physicians (visits) and hospitalization (annual nights) focusing on the impact of community- (CSC) and individual-level social capital (ISC). Quantile regressions were also performed for GP visits. CSC is measured using the Petris Social Capital Index (PSCI) based on employment levels in religious and community-based organizations [NAICS 813XX] and ISC is based on self-reported connectedn...
Source: Health Economics, Policy, and Law - September 17, 2008 Category: Health Management Authors: Laporte A, Nauenberg E, Shen L Tags: Health Econ Policy Law Source Type: journals

Social capital and the social formation of health-related preferences and behaviours.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Social capital appears to be an important determinant of health production and health utilization and demand. However, there is limited evidence on the mechanisms underlying this relationship. In this article we draw on the evidence and insights reported in this special issue along with findings from the economic and other social science literature to develop a discussion on the explanations of the likely (behavioural) mechanisms that underpin the connection between social capital and health. An important and under-explored influence mediating the relationship between social capital and health (behaviour) lies in the i...
Source: Health Economics, Policy, and Law - September 17, 2008 Category: Health Management Authors: Costa-Font J, Mladovsky P Tags: Health Econ Policy Law Source Type: journals

Mental health reform: Europe at the cross-roads.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
PMID: 18634617 [PubMed - in process] (Source: Health Economics, Policy, and Law)
Source: Health Economics, Policy, and Law - July 1, 2008 Category: Health Management Authors: McDaid D Tags: Health Econ Policy Law Source Type: journals

Addressing legal and political barriers to global pharmaceutical access: options for remedying the impact of the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) and the imposition of TRIPS-plus standards.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Despite myriad programs aimed at increasing access to essential medicines in the developing world, the global drug gap persists. This paper focuses on the major legal and political constraints preventing implementation of coordinated global policy solutions - particularly, the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) and bilateral and regional free trade agreements. We argue that several policy and research routes should be taken to mitigate the restrictive impact of TRIPS and TRIPS-plus rules, including greater use of TRIPS flexibilities, advancement of human rights, and an ethical fr...
Source: Health Economics, Policy, and Law - July 1, 2008 Category: Health Management Authors: Cohen-Kohler JC, Forman L, Lipkus N Tags: Health Econ Policy Law Source Type: journals

Willingness to pay for alternative policies for patients with Alzheimer's Disease.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
This paper focuses on eliciting the willingness to pay (WTP) for policy measures aimed at improving the health care offered to patients suffering from Alzheimer's disease (AD). We utilize a discrete choice experiment (DCE) approach for the elicitation of the preferences of the general population for three alternative policies: home care, day care centres, and medium or long-stay centres. The results show that these policies are significantly valued across the surveyed population. The monthly WTP per hour of home care is estimated as 4 euros per individual, while the monthly WTP values for full population coverage in da...
Source: Health Economics, Policy, and Law - July 1, 2008 Category: Health Management Authors: Negrín MA, Pinilla J, León CJ Tags: Health Econ Policy Law Source Type: journals

Valuing lives and life years: anomalies, implications, and an alternative.Email this article to a colleague. Save this article to My Clippings. Discuss or comment on this article.
Many government interventions seek to reduce the risk of death. The value of preventing a fatality (VPF) is the monetary amount associated with each statistical death that an intervention can be expected to prevent. The VPF has been estimated using a preference-based approach, either by observing market behaviour (revealed preferences) or by asking hypothetical questions that seek to replicate the market (stated preferences). The VPF has been shown to differ across and within these methods. In theory, the VPF should vary according to factors such as baseline and background risk, but, in practice, the estimates vary mor...
Source: Health Economics, Policy, and Law - July 1, 2008 Category: Health Management Authors: Dolan P, Metcalfe R, Munro V, Christensen MC Tags: Health Econ Policy Law Source Type: journals