Social protection refers to a set of policy measures to protect individuals, especially the critically poor, from financial losses due to high-risk events, such as natural disasters, social risks like unemployment, war or unexpected financial shocks, and political risks like discrimination of minorities in conflict zones (1–3). In terms of health, social protection includes protection against h...

The purpose of this study was to further knowledge of health care seeking behavior among pregnant women in rural Haiti. Eighty-two pregnant women were interviewed to assess care seeking behaviors during pregnancy, satisfaction with services, reliance on social networks, and management of pregnancy-related illness. Twenty-five percent reported not seeking care in the formal health sector for a p...

No one is too clear about the underlying goals of health sector reforms. The cynical may detect a neo-liberal free market agenda in the rhetoric that emanates from the World Bank’s health report of 1993, but even the cynical need to deal with the issues that health reforms throw up. More recently the Bank itself has recognised the failures of the market approach in health care and argued for a ...

Copies of this work may be made for non-commercial distribution to aid social care workforce development. Any other copying requires the permission of Skills for Care. Skills for Care is the employer-led strategic body for workforce development in social care for adults in England. It is part of the sector skills council, Skills for Care and Development. A scoping study of workforce development...

THE US HEALTH CARE SYSTEM CAN DO A BETTER JOB OF providing patient care while moderating the rate of increase in cost, but it can do little about improving overall population health. This is because health care delivery accounts for only 10% of preventable deaths, with the remainder attributable to personal behaviors, social and environmental determinants, and genetic predisposition. As current...

This review, commissioned by the Research Councils UK Living With Environmental Change (LWEC) programme, concerns research on the impacts on health and social care systems in the United Kingdom of extreme weather events, under conditions of climate change. Extreme weather events considered include heatwaves, coldwaves and flooding. Using a structured review method, we consider evidence regardin...

Should health care provision be public, private, or both? We look at this question in a setting where people differ in their earnings capacity and express an inelastic demand for health care. We assume that illness reduces a person’s health status when not receiving immediate treatment. Treatment can be obtained in a competitive private sector or in the National Health Service (NHS) where it is...

The remarkable dynamism of government welfare provision in Africa and in Latin America and the Caribbean is embedded in a broader context. As a legacy of the colonial past, social protection for old age and health care was generally the privilege of the rather small group of formal sector workers. French colonialism emphasized an active role of the state in social protection and had a quite uni...

The development of a health-care system depends on a country’s economic, political, social and cultural background. Because of China’s transformation over the last 20 years from a socialist economy to a market economy, China’s healthcare services have been converted from social and public goods to market goods without government planning or intervention. Liu’s article (1) in this issue clearly ...

Health and social care agencies in the UK. have been under pressure for some time to reduce delayed transfers of older people from hospital because they absorb scarce health service resources and incur a human cost through inappropriate placement. A local study based on an analysis of records and interviews with managers showed that delays reflect the complex needs of older people, and arise fr...