The Impact of Cost-Containment Schemes on Outpatient Services for Schoolchildren with Refractive Errors in Taiwan-A Population-Based Study.

Objectives: Extant research on cost-sharing finds no impact on health care utilization when the amount is insubstantial. This research investigates the effects on nonacute outpatient services for schoolchildren with refractive errors in Taiwan and discusses the potential harm caused by cost sharing and relevant cost containment policies.

Methods: Longitudinal claims data from the National Health Insurance database are employed.

Demographics, Socioeconomic Context, and the Spread of Infectious Disease: The Case of COVID-19.

Importance: Due to the evolving variants of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), it is important to understand the relationship between the disease condition and socioeconomic, demographic, and health indicators across regions.

Background: Studies examining the relationships between infectious disease and socioeconomic variables are not yet well established.

Design: A total of 3042 counties in the United States are included as the observation unit in the study.

Risk Factors and Behaviours of Schoolchildren with Myopia in Taiwan.

Because of the high prevalence of myopia in Taiwan, understanding the risk factors for its development and progression is important to public health. This study investigated the risk factors for myopia and their influence on the progression of myopia in schoolchildren in Taiwan. Patients' clinical records were obtained retrospectively from ophthalmologists.

The determinants of obstetricians' willingness to undertake delivery by vaginal birth after cesarean section in Taiwan.

Background: Babies are sometimes delivered by cesarean section (CS) to women eligible for trial of labor after a cesarean (TOLAC) due to a fear of complications during the delivery process. This view is especially widespread in Taiwan, as evidenced by the extremely low rate (<5%) of vaginal birth after cesarean section (VBAC). To improve the safety and quality of childbirth and the obstetrical practice environment, this study aimed to identify ways to contain the ever-increasing rate of CS by investigating the determinants for TOLAC from the viewpoint of obstetricians.

Vaginal Birth after Cesarean Section in Taiwan: A Population-Based Study.

The rate of vaginal birth after cesarean section (VBAC) is extremely low in Taiwan probably due to the high perceived risk of trial of labor after a cesarean (TOLAC). To promote the benefits associated with vaginal birth, this study provides evidence to potentially assist relevant public authorities adopt appropriate guidelines or optimize health insurance reimbursement policies to achieve a higher VBAC rate. Employing the National Health Insurance (NHI) Claim Data, this study analyzes women's adoptions of birth-giving methods for those who had previous cesarean section (CS) experiences.

Does Computerized Physician Order Entry Benefit from Dynamic Structured Data Entry? A Quasi-Experimental Study.

Background: With advancements in information technology, computerized physician order entry (CPOE) and electronic Medical Records (eMR), have become widely utilized in medical settings. The predominant mode of CPOE in Taiwan is free text entry (FTE). Dynamic structured data entry (DSDE) was introduced more recently, and has increasingly drawn attention from hospitals across Taiwan.

Increased risk of periodontitis among patients with Crohn's disease: a population-based matched-cohort study.

Background: Periodontitis is a frequently cited extraintestinal manifestation of Crohn's disease (CD). Despite a plethora of investigations and a recent meta-analysis linking CD and periodontitis, no study has estimated the risk of periodontitis among CD patients with respect to a comparison group nor has any investigation analyzed the effect of CD-specific medications on the risk of periodontitis. The present cohort study compared CD patients and matched subjects without a history of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) to estimate the effect of CD and CD-specific pharmaceutical prescriptions on the risk of developing periodontitis by leveraging a population-based dataset in Taiwan.

The impact of alcohol policies on alcohol-attributable diseases in Taiwan-A population-based study.

Background: Taiwan has some of the strictest alcohol-related driving laws in the world. However, its laws continue to be toughened to reduce the ever-increasing social cost of alcohol-related harm.

Aim: This study assumes that alcohol-related driving laws show a spillover effect such that behavioral changes originally meant to apply behind the wheel come to affect drinking behavior in other contexts.

Study of Patients' Willingness to Pay for a Cure of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease in Taiwan.

Objectives: Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) is one of the fastest growing causes of death worldwide. However, few studies, if any, have been conducted that have investigated patient profiles in Asia. This paper analyzes patient willingness to pay (WTP) as a function of patient disease severity, health-related quality of life (HRQL), and smoking behavior in Taiwan.

Unsupervised segmentation of lung fields in chest radiographs using multiresolution fractal feature vector and deformable models.

Segmenting lung fields in a chest radiograph is essential for automatically analyzing an image. We present an unsupervised method based on multiresolution fractal feature vector. The feature vector characterizes the lung field region effectively.

The effectiveness of drinking and driving policies for different alcohol-related fatalities: a quantile regression analysis.

To understand the impact of drinking and driving laws on drinking and driving fatality rates, this study explored the different effects these laws have on areas with varying severity rates for drinking and driving. Unlike previous studies, this study employed quantile regression analysis. Empirical results showed that policies based on local conditions must be used to effectively reduce drinking and driving fatality rates; that is, different measures should be adopted to target the specific conditions in various regions.

The effectiveness of alcohol control policies on alcohol-related traffic fatalities in the United States.

Multiple alcohol control policies have been enacted since the early 1980s to keep drunk drivers off the roads and to prevent more alcohol-related traffic fatalities. In this paper, we analyze nine traffic policies to determine the extent to which each policy contributes to effective alcohol-related fatality prevention. Compared with the existing literature, this paper addresses a more comprehensive set of traffic policies.

Quality of life, treatments, and patients' willingness to pay for a complete remission of cervical cancer in Taiwan.

Cervical cancer is one of the leading causes of cancer deaths in Taiwan. To investigate the disease cost and then raise awareness of the importance of screening for cervical cancer and promote early detection, this paper employs contingent valuation and willingness to pay (WTP) method to study how health-related quality of life, disease severity, and after-treatment disease status affect patients' WTP for a complete remission of the disease. The inclusive criteria for the study were primary case outpatients at least 3 months after they had received therapy at the time of our study period.