This paper explores the implications of the increasing role of informal as well as formal markets in the health systems of many low and middle-income countries. It focuses on institutional arrangements for making the benefits of expert medical knowledge widely available in the face of the...

This paper explores the gendered impact of Chinese healthcare reforms, drawing attention to the complex and changing nature of gender inequities in China's current economic and social transformations. Using official and academic sources, it examines the reforms' impact on access to reproductive...

This paper describes some of the conceptual and methodological issues encountered in the course of a study of mainly anthropological secondary source materials on sexual behaviour in sub-Saharan Africa. Its aim was to survey and review existing literature and other secondary sources available...

Purpose: To identify the relative risks of catastrophic healthcare expenditures for different types of health need, and the impact of such expenditure on household coping strategies. Methods: Using data from a household survey in West Bengal, the risks of incurring ‘catastrophic' healthcare...

There has been much discussion of the role that recent advances in information and communication technologies (ICTs) could play in improving health systems in developing countries, but limited independent analysis of existing applications. Combining a case study approach with a general...

Does the Internet have the potential to accelerate development in poor nations? Or is it an innovation that will widen the gap between wealthy and poor countries? This paper places the Internet in a framework of major innovations in modern economic history that have contributed to increased...

With the reform of urban health delivery systems in China, concern has been growing about the effect of these changes on health care demand and utilization at basic-level health institutions, especially Community Health Services Centers (CHC). Using data from the fourth China National Health...