This Note examines an innovative, donor-supported voucher scheme to treat and prevent sexually transmitted diseases in Nicaragua. Voucher schemes enable donors to purchase outputs rather than inputs while also offering beneficiaries a choice of provider, a feature that sets them apart from other...

As a component of a series of studies of childhood diarrhoea in rural Nicaragua, lay knowledge regarding the condition and its appropriate management has been investigated through semistructured interviews with 70 mothers. These data have been combined with information from focus group...

Motels in Nicaragua are popular venues for both commercial and non-commercial sexual encounters and thus provide a potential location for the spread of sexually transmitted agents, including the human immunodeficiency virus. Condoms are known to be effective barriers against these infections,...

Global data show that the poor make extensive use of non-state service providers. There is increasing recognition that the health Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are unlikely to be achieved without the active engagement of this sector. There is hardly a business case suggesting that private...

This article discusses the way in which emotion rules are learned by service workers through an ethnographic study of employees in a chain of public houses. It reviews the findings of recent research based on studies of large firms in the service sector in order to discuss similarities and...

This article explores the concept of occupational community in an attempt to discover whether it provides a useful analytical tool for understanding work experience in face-to-face service occupations.The conceptual components of occupational community are identified and discussed and then...

The reform of health information systems has been made a priority by health managers, public health specialists and technocrats. While each of these groups has promised major benefits from improvements in information systems, insufficient attention has been paid to the limitations placed upon...

Current health reform proposals in most developing countries stress health gain as the chief evaluation criterion. Essential service packages are formulated using cost-effectiveness methods for the selection of interventions without sufficient regard for other factors that are significant for...