This overview of health financing tools, policies and trends--with a particular focus on challenges facing developing countries--provides the basis for effective policy-making. Analyzing the current global environment, the book discusses health financing goals in the context of both the...

This volume focuses on nine countries that have completed, or are well along in the process of carrying out, major health financing reforms. These countries have significantly expanded their people's health care coverage or maintained such coverage after prolonged political or economic shocks....

This study calculates the economic costs of exposure to secondhand tobacco smoke (SHS) in Maryland – for individuals, employers, and society as a whole. The total costs reported in this study for calendar year 2005 are as follows: Costs related to childhood illness and death –...

Although baseline data for post-conflict situations are frequently unavailable, there is a clear deterioration in the health conditions of populations during and following conflict. Excess mortality and morbidity, displaced populations, and vulnerability to communicable diseases during and...

This paper reviews methodologies and international experience related to costing and pricing health services. Several factors affect the determination of the prices purchasers pay for health services. These include: the method of provider payment; the availability of information on costs,...

This document assesses the current importance and potential of the private sector in contributing to child health. In many countries private and non-governmental providers are more commonly consulted for child health illnesses than public providers are. Even poor families often use private...

Health care expenditures can be financed through a mix of public resources and private spending. Private spending is a much larger share of total health spending in low- and middle-income countries than in higher income countries. Moreover, a significant percentage of private spending in those...

This book is divided into seven chapters. Chapter one is an overview. Chapter two reviews South Asia's recent track record with regard to the quantity and quality of job creation. It traces the relationship of such job creation mostly to overall economic growth and attempts to answer what needs...