BACKGROUND Taiwan's National Health Insurance (NHI), implemented in 1995, substantially increased the number of health care facilities that can deliver free prenatal care. Because of the increase in such facilities, it is usually assumed that women would have more choices regarding prenatal care facilities and thus experience reduction in travel cost. Nevertheless, there has been no research ex...

INTRODUCTION This study assesses whether demographic and rural-urban variations in dental care service utilization still exist in Taiwan after 15 years of the implementation of universal health insurance coverage, which largely reduces financial barriers to dental care. METHODS The data analysed in this cohort study were based on a random sample of one million beneficiaries retrieved from Tai...

BACKGROUND WHO suggest that family physician is the core in the world efforts for quality improvement, cost effectiveness, and equity in the health care systems. This study evaluates the impact of the program on accessibility of the services, case finding, patient referral, feedback process and insurance coverage in the rural health units. METHODS This study was quasi experimental. It compare...

while promoting rural economic enterprises and businesses can contribute to create and strengthen entrepreneurship, this as a crucial strategy will accelerate rural development process. through extending these businesses and strengthening entrepreneurship among rural people proper solutions can be found to combine resources both inside and outside the village. it can also assist to provide both...

BACKGROUND Access to care remains a key part of improving health care outcomes in the United States. Recent reports have suggested that the number of physicians able to meet the demands for access to care may be decreasing. METHODS We surveyed physicians practicing in rural and urban/suburban areas of Florida in 2004 to determine whether changes were occurring in health care service delivery....

BACKGROUND Under the current healthcare system in China, there is no government-sponsored health insurance program for children. Children from families who move from rural and interior regions to large urban centres without a valid residency permit might be at higher risk of being uninsured due to their low socioeconomic status. We conducted a survey in Shanghai to describe children's health in...

OBJECTIVE To determine whether the New Cooperative Medical Insurance Scheme (NCMS) is associated with decreased levels of catastrophic health expenditure and reduced impoverishment due to medical expenses in rural households of China. METHODS An analysis of a national representative sample of 38,945 rural households (129,635 people) from the 2008 National Health Service Survey was performed. ...

This paper explores the relationship between credit and index insurance market development using a theoretical model in which small farm households have the option to either (i) adopt a capital-intensive technology that is risky but high-yielding, or (ii) self-insure by adopting a traditional low-input and low-yielding technology. We show that neither market is likely to develop in isolation fr...

OBJECTIVE To investigate the determinants and quality of coverage decisions among uninsured choosing plans in a hypothetical health insurance marketplace. STUDY SETTING Two samples of uninsured individuals: one from an Internet-based sample comprised largely of young, healthy, tech-savvy individuals (n = 276), and the other from low-income, rural Virginians (n = 161). STUDY DESIGN We assess...