The health workforce plays a key role in increasing access to health services for the poor in developing countries. Recent evidence has demonstrated an important link between staffing levels and both service delivery and health outcomes. Various global and country-level estimates have also shown...

The richness of the research papers in this volume makes it difficult to quickly capture the main themes and implications of their research. But three repeated themes can be highlighted: equality of public spending, the role of the private sector, and the role of consumers. On the theme of...

This report focuses on four areas of the health system in which reforms, and innovations would make the most difference to the future of the Indian health system: oversight, public health service delivery, ambulatory curative care, and inpatient care (together with health insurance). Part 1 of...

This book looks primarily at Cardio Vascular Disease (CVD) and tobacco use because they account for a disproportionate amount of the Non Communicable Disease (NCD) burden the focus is strategic rather than comprehensive. It considers both country and regional level approaches for tackling NCDs,...

The way countries finance health care influences how well a health system performs and achieves its expected outcomes, including how equitable and efficient it is. Countries decide how to mobilize revenues from different sources for financing health care, how to pool revenues in public and...

Over the past decade, faster growth and smarter social policy have reversed the trend in Latin America's poverty. Too slowly and insufficiently, but undeniably, the percentage of Latinos who are poor has at long last begun to fall. This has shifted the political and policy debates from poverty...

The report shows that there is good evidence that conditional cash transfers (CCTs) have improved the lives of poor people. Transfers generally have been well targeted to poor households, have raised consumption levels, and have reduced poverty, by a substantial amount in some countries....