The paper discusses the institutional reforms for rural electrification (RE) in Thailand and Bangladesh and analyses the impacts of private sector participation in electricity generation and tariff reforms on the poor in Thailand. RE program in Thailand, initiated in 1977, increased electricity access by rural households from 7% in early 70s to 97% by 2000. In Bangladesh the RE program, initiat...

Socioeconomic trends and developments within the U.S. healthcare system have challenged rural hospitals' ability to maintain adequate operating margins and offer needed services. However, some hospitals have fared better in this negative environment than have others. To clarify factors that distinguish the most viable rural Catholic hospitals from the least viable, our study identified a group ...

The New South Wales Department of Health (NSW Health) wishes to make appropriate use of casemix data as inputs to the determination of funding levels for small rural hospitals. However, other factors such as hospital size and degree of isolation might need to be taken into account. The study reported here involved correlation of actual expenditures with those predicted by use of a casemix model...

An examination of rural policy requires an understanding of the unique conditions in rural places that justify separate national policies. The great differences among rural people and places in America make it hard to fashion national policies that fit all of these places. The analytical problem also is complicated by this diversity as well as the absence of a common statistical definition of r...

25 ONE of the most neglected areas of health research is that involving effects of accidents and injuries on the lives of rural populations. A vast majority of the epidemiological studies on health of rural populations have concentrated on infectious diseases. In these studies the problems of women are clubbed together as those falling within the ambit of maternal and child health. A study done...

How can rural hospitals continue to attract physicians to their facilities? For most rural hospitals, the number of dollars they spend in medical education equates to the number of physicians they are able to retain on staff. What will be the cost to the consumer versus the physicians if the shortage is not addressed and corrected?

This paper explores determinants of participation, intensity and the magnitude of the rural nonfarm economy (RNFE) in Tajikistan. Conducting analysis at the district level, in addition to traditional individual and household levels, helps to test the impact of institutional determinants of the RNFE invariant at the micro level. We have found that rural residents in Tajikistan are mostly pushed ...

While undergoing the unprecedented urbanization process in the past few decades, China has also experienced a major epidemiological shift from predominantly infectious diseases to chronic conditions. Using data from a national survey of 1,288 respondents in urban China, this study examines the prevalence of chronic conditions and receipt of treatment among urbanized rural residents who have exp...