D URING THE past several years, physicians have become increasingly aware of the epidemic of obesity in the United States. The alarming increase in its prevalence, both in adults and children, has led to the development of initiatives geared to the recognition of obesity as a complex disorder of energy balance requiring long-term treatment. The change in our view of obesity from a shameful soci...

Politicians, their constituents and family physicians believe that preventive medicine is essential if health care is to be improved. Family physicians believe that the majority of their patients are well cared for with preventive health care services but in reality preventive services are provided to less than half the population and some to fewer than 10%. Barriers to providing preventive car...

Achieving universal health coverage (UHC)—defined as access to needed health services to all and protection against financial risks arising from paying for health services [1]—is among the top priorities of reform agendas across many countries. Provision of health services should be determined by individuals’ need rather than their ability to pay and, at the same time, utilization of services b...

An aging population, growing awareness of chronic disease, and access and navigation of health care services prompt much discussion regarding aging in Australia. Debate within academic and policy circles directs attention toward preventive health, with a growing interest in “healthy aging” and “active aging” where quality of life, rather than years of life, is important. There is little doubt t...

This paper examines the case of Mexican immigrants in the United States and their access to medical services within a political economy of health framework. Such an approach stresses that the provision of health care is independent of health factors per se and that access to health care is not equally distributed throughout a population. The first section reviews the three major concepts influe...

OBJECTIVES We sought to find racial differences in the effects of trust in the health care system on preventive health service use among older adults. METHODS We conducted a telephone survey with 1681 Black and White older adults. Survey questions explored respondents' trust in physicians, medical research, and health information sources. We used logistic regression and controlled for covaria...

Contracting out of health services to the private sectors has been the subject of extensive debate and discussion among health personnel and policymakers. Outsourcing is now considered as a useful management tool for health care managers in the public sector. Outsourcing increases efficiency and service quality, reduces costs, focuses on core processes, improves skills, enhances the overall com...

The US Indian health system utilizes a diverse range of health information technology and innovative tools to enhance health service delivery for American Indians and Alaska Natives. This article provides an overview of efforts and experience using such tools to achieve health equity for American Indian and Alaska Native communities. Specific attention is given to the Indian Health Service Elec...

BACKGROUND Effectively addressing health disparities between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians is long overdue. Health services engaging Aboriginal communities in designing and delivering healthcare is one way to tackle the issue. This paper presents findings from evaluating a unique strategy of community engagement between local Aboriginal people and health providers across five distri...

This paper provides empirical evidence of the influence of adolescent marriage opportunities on female schooling attainment and gives predictions of the impact for imposing universal age-of-consent laws. Using data from rural Bangladesh, we explore the commonly cited hypotheses that women attain less schooling as a result of social and financial pressure to marry young. We isolate the causal ef...