COVID-19 and Unmet Healthcare Needs of Older People: Did Inequity Arise in Europe?

Background: The disruption in healthcare provision due to the COVID-19 pandemic forced many non-urgent medical treatments and appointments to be postponed or denied, which is expected to have huge impact on non-acute health conditions, especially in vulnerable populations such as older people. Attention should be paid to equity issues related to unmet needs during the pandemic.

Methods: We calculated concentration indices to identify income-related inequalities and horizontal inequity in unmet needs due to postponed and denied healthcare in people over 50 during COVID-19, using data from the Survey on Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE).

Mental Illness Inequalities by Multimorbidity, Use of Health Resources and Socio-Economic Status in an Aging Society.

Background: Mental illness, multi-morbidity, and socio-economic inequalities are some of the main challenges for the public health system nowadays, and are further aggravated by the process of population aging. Therefore, it is widely accepted that health systems need to focus their strategies for confronting such concerns. With guaranteed access to health care services under universal coverage in many health systems, it is expected that all services be provided equally to patients with the same level of need.

Low-cost, easy-to-build noninvasive pressure support ventilator for under-resourced regions: open source hardware description, performance and feasibility testing.

Aim: Current pricing of commercial mechanical ventilators in low-/middle-income countries (LMICs) markedly restricts their availability, and consequently a considerable number of patients with acute/chronic respiratory failure cannot be adequately treated. Our aim was to design and test an affordable and easy-to-build noninvasive bilevel pressure ventilator to allow a reduction in the serious shortage of ventilators in LMICs.

Methods: The ventilator was built using off-the-shelf materials available e-commerce and was based on a high-pressure blower, two pressure transducers and an Arduino Nano controller with a digital display (total retail cost <75 USD), with construction details provided open source for free replication.

The Evolution of Mental Health in the Context of Transitory Economic Changes.

Background: Mental health disorders are highly prevalent across countries. They increase over time and impose a severe burden on individuals and societies.

Objective: This paper examines the evolution of mental health over a period of 15 years, paying special attention on the impact of the most recent economic downturn and subsequent recovery, in Spain.

Alternative separation of exchange and correlation energies in multi-configuration range-separated density-functional theory.

The alternative separation of exchange and correlation energies proposed by Toulouse et al. [Theor. Chem.

[Differential impact of social capital on mental health in the native-born and immigrant populations living in Catalonia (Spain)].

Objectives: This study attempts to create a bridge between the literature on immigration and on social capital and health. The objectives were two-fold: firstly, to provide new empirical evidence on the association between social capital and health, using data from Catalonia for the first time and, secondly, to explore the possible existence of a differential impact of social capital on health between native-born residents and immigrants. We also distinguished between individual and community-level social capital.

Changes in the demand for private medical insurance following a shift in tax incentives.

The 1998 Spanish reform of the Personal Income Tax eliminated the 15% deduction for private medical expenditures including payments on private health insurance (PHI) policies. To avoid an undesired increase in the demand for publicly funded health care, tax incentives to buy PHI were not completely removed but basically shifted from individual to group employer-paid policies. In a unique fiscal experiment, at the same time that the tax relief for individually purchased policies was abolished, the government provided for tax allowances on policies taken out through employment.

The effect of private insurance access on the choice of GP/specialist and public/private provider in Spain.

This paper sheds light into the investigation of differential patterns of utilisation of physician services by populations subgroups that is emerging in a number of studies. Using Spanish data from the National Health Survey of 1997 we try to explain the distinct role of the type of insurance on the choice between specialists and GPs and its intertwining with the choice between private and public providers. We estimate a two-stages probit to conclude that differences in insurance access is the main determinant of both, the choice of sector and the kind of physician contacted, giving rise to very different patterns of consumption of GP and specialist visits.

[The influence of the type of insurance access on health and of education on health services utilization patterns].

This study analyses the utilisation of health services by gender, type of insurance access and the level of education. Descriptive and logistic regression analysis of the National Health Interview Survey, 1997, confirms that women go more often to the doctor than men. Differences are greater in the case of general practitioners (versus specialists) and public doctors (versus private).