During recent years, informal money service providers, or hawaladars, have gained an enhanced role as an important informal institution and key economic agents in Afghanistan. The hawala system, handling both financial transfers and currency exchange, was important in Afghanistan even before the war. But during the long period of conflict, and especially under the Taliban regime, the hawala mar...

In many low-income countries, private providers have long been a significant source of health care.1–3 Private providers include individual practitioners, both formal and “informal”, working alone and in groups;4 national and international nongovernmental organizations; and private companies providing health care for employees and their dependants. In some countries, private (or more accurately...

BACKGROUND: Persons with severe mental illness (SMI) often get extensive informal care from family members and friends as well as substantial amounts of formal treatment from paid professionals. Both sources of care are well documented, but very little is known about how one affects the other. AIMS OF THE STUDY: This analysis estimates the extent of substitution between direct care provided by ...

PURPOSE/OBJECTIVES To explore the experience of informal caregivers of patients with a primary brain tumor by identifying themes of the caregiving experience specific to this population. RESEARCH APPROACH Qualitative study employing Parse's descriptive exploratory method. SETTING National Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive cancer center in a major city in the southern United States. ...

BACKGROUND Informal patient payments for healthcare are common in the Western Balkans, negatively affecting public health and healthcare. AIM To identify literature from the Western Balkans on what is known about informal patient payments and bought and brought goods, to examine their effects on healthcare and to determine what actions can be taken to tackle these payments. METHODS After co...

BACKGROUND The presence of a large informal healthcare sector in many low- and middle-income countries poses both challenges and opportunities for achieving a people-centered health system. However, few studies have considered how informal providers may fit into a people-centered health systems approach. We examine the self-described roles and motivations of informal medicine vendors and public...

The roles and practices of informal health care providers were studied in 2 Egyptian villages, focusing on practices which might be associated with the bloodborne transmission of hepatitis C virus (HCV). In the study areas, many people resorted to male providers for injections, dentistry, wound treatment and male circumcision. Traditional birth attendants oversaw > 50% of all births. "Injection...

WHY: Nearly 6 million people over age 65 receive home health services (NAHC, 2008). Many older home care patients have overlapping medical conditions requiring continuous or complex services. Family members and other lay caregivers (informal caregivers) are often unprepared to manage complex treatment regimens, recognize complications, and coordinate care that frequently involves many different...

An increasing demand for both formal and informal care is likely to result from the ongoing demographic transition at the same time as there is a further move away from the traditional domestic division of labour. Public policy-making that aims at increasing the supply of informal care necessitates knowledge about the relative importance of various incentives for individual care providers. This...