Health And Freedom

Freedom and Human Dignity

............

Health and historical levels of freedom

BACKGROUND The link between political freedom and health is unclear. We aimed to determine the association by exploring the relationship of historical and cumulative freedom levels with important health outcomes. METHODS We obtained countrywide health indicators for life expectancy, infant mortality, maternal mortality ratio, % low birth weight babies, Gini coefficient (a measure of wealth in...

Public health ethics and clinical freedom.

Health economics: the end of clinical freedom?

A British professor of economics enters the debate within the medical profession over whether it is the doctor's duty to take costs into account when deciding what course of action to recommend for a patient. He surveys differing views on the subject, and concludes with an analysis of Raymond Hoffenberg's thesis in his book Clinical Freedom (London: Nuffield Provincial Hospitals Trust; 1987), a...

Health economics: the start of clinical freedom

BACKGROUND Since Professor Hampton announced the death of clinical freedom in 1983, the increasing influence of Evidence-based Medicine and Health Technology Assessment has contributed to augment the feeling that clinicians have a secondary role in the therapeutic decision-making process. DISCUSSION This article constitutes a reflection on how clinicians may use the results of economic evalua...