OBJECTIVE To identify how some general practices have low growth in prescribing costs relative to other practices. DESIGN Observational study. SETTING Trent region of England. PARTICIPANTS 162 general practices: 54 with low growth in prescribing costs, 54 with average increases in costs, and 54 with large increases in costs. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Changes in prescribing costs in therapeu...

Copyright © 2008 Massachusetts Medical Society. Approximately 12.5% of births in the United States are preterm (occurring before 37 weeks of gestation). Preterm infants with “very low” birth weight are those who weigh 1500 g or less; those with “extremely low” birth weight weigh 1000 g or less. Although they account for only 1.5% and 0.7% of live births, respectively, these infants contribute d...

This study uses hospital records for 7,000 births in McLennan County, Texas, during the period June 1987-July 1989 to examine the association between prenatal care and birth outcome and the implications for hospital costs of newborn infants. After controlling for a variety of maternal and birth factors, a significant relationship between prenatal care and birth outcome remained. Females who fai...

STUDY DESIGN Case-control. OBJECTIVE To examine the association between adherence to the evidence-based recommendation for active physical therapy care and clinical outcomes along with subsequent healthcare utilization and charges for 1 year after completion of physical therapy. SUMMARY OF BACKGROUND DATA Low back pain (LBP) is a common condition associated with high costs. Many patients wi...

Economic impacts of agricultural carbon sequestration involve direct costs of sequestration management adoption as well as a variety of indirect costs and benefits. The nature and significance of these impacts are discussed. Spatial and temporal heterogeneity in agriculture is identified as an influential factor. Techniques to estimate the cost of agricultural carbon sequestration are briefly r...

the purchase of insurance may cause the insureds to increase the costs of insurance companies, compared to their estimation of costs. if after the demand of insurance services, the loss ratio of insurance companies increases because of consumer behavior, moral hazard will be evident. in this paper, after introducing the literature, the presence of moral hazard in iran insurance company is teste...

BACKGROUND Despite the large volume of research dedicated to understanding chronic low back pain (CLBP), patient outcomes remain modest while healthcare costs continue to rise, creating a major public health burden. Health literacy - the ability to seek, understand and utilise health information - has been identified as an important factor in the course of other chronic conditions and may be im...