Medical device management reform, United Republic of Tanzania.

Health-care technology is central to boosting the productivity and quality of health-care systems. In many sub-Saharan African countries, however, medical device management systems are weak or absent. The aim of this article is to illustrate, using a case study, how policy reforms can help ensure policy on health-care technology is translated into everyday practice and how an integrated systems approach can enhance the operation of medical device management.

The collectivity of British alcohol consumption trends across different temporal processes: a quantile age-period-cohort analysis.

Background And Aims: UK alcohol consumption per capita has fallen by 18% since 2004, while the alcohol-specific death rate has risen by 6%. Inconsistent consumption trends across the population may explain this. Drawing on the theory of the collectivity of drinking cultures and age-period-cohort analyses, we tested whether consumption trends are consistent across lighter and heavier drinkers for three temporal processes: (i) the life-course, (ii) calendar time and (iii) successive birth cohorts.

Modeling the Potential Impact of Changing Access Rates to Specialist Treatment for Alcohol Dependence for Local Authorities in England: The Specialist Treatment for Alcohol Model (STreAM).

Objective: We modeled the impact of changing Specialist Treatment Access Rates to different treatment pathways on the future prevalence of alcohol dependence, treatment outcomes, service capacity, costs, and mortality.

Method: Local Authority numbers and the prevalence of people "potentially in need of assessment for and treatment in specialist services for alcohol dependence" (PINASTFAD) are estimated by mild, moderate, severe, and complex needs. Administrative data were used to estimate the Specialist Treatment Access Rate per PINASTFAD person and classify 22 different treatment pathways.

Developing a social practice-based typology of British drinking culture in 2009-2011: implications for alcohol policy analysis.

Background And Aims: The concept of national drinking culture is well established in research and policy debate, but rarely features in contemporary alcohol policy analysis. We aim to demonstrate the value of the alternative concept of social practices for quantitatively operationalizing drinking culture. We discuss how a practice perspective addresses limitations in existing analytical approaches to health-related behaviour before demonstrating its empirical application by constructing a statistical typology of British drinking occasions.

Estimated Effects of Different Alcohol Taxation and Price Policies on Health Inequalities: A Mathematical Modelling Study.

Introduction: While evidence that alcohol pricing policies reduce alcohol-related health harm is robust, and alcohol taxation increases are a WHO "best buy" intervention, there is a lack of research comparing the scale and distribution across society of health impacts arising from alternative tax and price policy options. The aim of this study is to test whether four common alcohol taxation and pricing strategies differ in their impact on health inequalities.

Methods And Findings: An econometric epidemiological model was built with England 2014/2015 as the setting.

Alcohol tax pass-through across the product and price range: do retailers treat cheap alcohol differently?

Background And Aims: Effective use of alcohol duty to reduce consumption and harm depends partly on retailers passing duty increases on to consumers via price increases, also known as 'pass-through'. The aim of this analysis is to provide evidence of UK excise duty and sales tax (VAT) pass-through rates for alcohol products at different price points.

Setting: March 2008 to August 2011, United Kingdom.