Objectives The aim of the present study was to investigate healthcare provider perceptions of the impact of refugee patients at two public hospitals, one rural and one urban, in designated refugee resettlement areas. Healthcare professionals' views regarding improvements that could be made in this area were also sought. Methods Two-page anonymous questionnaires containing demographic, quantitat...

Introduction Increase in unemployment rate, along with growing resource depletion, is one of the economic-cultural challenges of many developing countries, including Iran. These problems are more deep and complex in rural areas. In other words, our society has been suffering from a lack of production for many years, and consequently, a high unemployment rate in rural areas, which has led to an...

Despite remarkable achievements in fighting poverty in the past three decades, numerous challenges remain for the People’s Republic of China. The country’s antipoverty efforts are in a key phase of strategic reorientation. This paper analyzes lessons learned from poverty reduction programs in the country and identifies key areas to be addressed in the next decade. The paper proposes seven polic...

BACKGROUND Human resources (HR) are one of the most important components determining performance of public health system. The aim of this study was to assess adequacy of HR of local public health agencies to meet the needs emerging from health care reforms in Georgia. METHODS We used the Human Resources for Health Action Framework, which includes six components: HR management, policy, finance...

Public health in the United States began as a largely urban phenomenon, dating back to the late 1700s. In those days, public health was mostly concerned with issues such as sanitation and communicable diseases, which were of greater concern in areas with higher population density. By the late 1800s, however, it was apparent that the country's population was becoming more mobile and communicable...

The goal of this paper is describe and analyze the relationship between ability tracking and student social capital, in the context of poor students in developing countries. Drawing on the results from a longitudinal study among 1,436 poor students across 132 schools in rural China, we find a significant lack of interpersonal trust and confidence in public institutions among poor rural young ad...

PURPOSE Consumption of medical opium for pain relief in India is low, despite the country being one of the main world producers of the substance. We investigated obstacles to opioid use and physician perceptions about optimal pain management in pediatric oncology patients in India. METHODS Semistructured interviews were conducted with oncologists who work in pediatric oncology settings. A mix...

Hepatitis A virus is an important public health problem especially in areas where hygiene and sanitation are improving such as Southeast Asia because, while the total number of cases of hepatitis A infection are reduced, the number of symptomatic and severe cases increase. The antibody prevalence in Bangkok and in rural areas of Thailand has markedly declined among children and adolescents (Poo...

After describing the institutions for health care in China as they evolved since 1949, this paper presents statistical demand functions for health care. It applies the demand functions to explain the rapid increase in health care demand and the resulting rapid increase in price when supply failed to increase. The failure in increase in supply was traced to the system of public supply of healthc...

Tobacco use is one of the behavioral risk factors for chronic diseases. The aim of the study was to investigate smoking prevalence in chronically ill residents and their smoking behavior in western rural China, to identify factors associated with success in quitting smoking, and to provide appropriate intervention strategies for tobacco control. Cross-sectional survey data from patients with ch...