As the Asian country with the most aged population, Japan, has been modifying its social welfare system. In 2000, the Japanese social care vision turned towards meeting the elderly's care needs in their own homes with proper formal care services. This study aims to understand the quantitative properties of the macro supply and demand structure for facilities for the elderly who require support ...

BACKGROUND Maternal morbidity and mortality is most prevalent in resource-poor settings such as sub-Saharan Africa and southern Asia. In sub-Saharan Africa, Ghana is one of the countries still facing particular challenges in reducing its maternal morbidity and mortality. Access to emergency obstetric care (EmOC) interventions has been identified as a means of improving maternal health outcomes....

The study analyzed farm households’ access and utilization of government health facilities in Kogi State, Nigeria. Specifically, it described the socioeconomic characteristics of farm households, determined the level of accessibility to health facilities by farm households, and determined the factors that drive farm households’ utilization of government health facilities. A two staged random sa...

BACKGROUND The World Health Organization (WHO) and the Government of Kenya alike identify a well-performing health workforce as key to attaining better health. Nevertheless, the motivation and retention of health care workers (HCWs) persist as challenges. This study investigated factors influencing motivation and retention of HCWs at primary health care facilities in three different settings in...

Long-term care, which includes nursing facilities and home health care, provides care to an increasing population of disabled, elderly persons with diabetes. Nursing facilities provide the majority of formal long-term care. Data from the Institutional Component of the 1987 National Medical Expenditure Survey (NMES-2) provide a profile of the demographics, health status, health care use, and nur...

OBJECTIVE The Integrated Management of Childhood Illness is a strategy designed to address major causes of child mortality. The aim of this study was to assess the impact of the strategy on the quality of child health care provided at primary facilities. METHODS Child health quality of care and costs were compared in four states in Northeastern Brazil, in 2001. There were studied 48 health fa...

INTRODUCTION Nigeria ranks among countries with the highest burden of tuberculosis. Yet evidence continues to indicate poor treatment outcomes which have been attributed to poor quality of care. This study aims to identify some of the systemic problems in order to inform policy decisions for improved quality of services and treatment outcomes in Nigeria. METHODS A comparative assessment of th...

BACKGROUND Research on health care utilization in low income countries suggests that patients frequently bypass PHC facilities in favour of higher-level hospitals - despite substantial additional time and financial costs. There are limited number of studies focusing on user's experiences at such facilities and reasons for bypassing them. This study aimed to identify factors associated with bypa...

OBJECTIVE To assess whether the ophthalmic cases presenting at a Nigerian tertiary eye unit are appropriate for such level of care and also draw necessary implications for service delivery. METHODS Data on 1321 consecutive new patients that presented at the ophthalmic clinic of the University of Teaching Hospital, Ilorin, Nigeria between February and July 2005 were reviewed on demographics, r...