Measuring primary healthcare expenditure in low-income and lower middle-income countries.

Primary healthcare (PHC) is considered as the pathway to Universal Health Coverage (UHC) and to achieving sustainable development goals. Measuring PHC expenditure is a critical first step to understanding why some countries improve access to health services, provide financial risk protection and achieve UHC. In this paper, we tested and examined different measurement options using the System of Health Accounts (SHA) 2011 for systematic monitoring of PHC expenditure.

Impact of conditional cash transfers on maternal and newborn health.

Maternal and newborn health (MNH) is a high priority for global health and is included among the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). However, the slow decline in maternal and newborn mortality jeopardizes achievements of the targets of MDGs. According to UNICEF, 60 million women give birth outside of health facilities, and family planning needs are satisfied for only 50%.

Reprioritizing government spending on health: pushing an elephant up the stairs?

Countries vary widely with respect to the share of government spending on health, a metric that can serve as a proxy for the extent to which health is prioritized by governments. World Health Organization (WHO) data estimate that, in 2011, health's share of aggregate government expenditure averaged 12% in the 170 countries for which data were available. However, country differences were striking: ranging from a low of 1% in Myanmar to a high of 28% in Costa Rica.

Applying behavioural economics to health systems of low- and middle-income countries: what are policymakers' and practitioners' views?

Interest in behavioural economics has soared in recent years, particularly because of its application to several areas of public policy, now including international development, education, and health. Yet, little is known about how the policy and political implications of behavioural economics are perceived among stakeholders. Using an innovative vignette-based online survey, we assessed the opinions of 520 policymakers and practitioners around the world about health policy recommendations emanating from behavioural economics principles that are relevant to low- and middle-income country settings.

Beyond income, access, and knowledge: factors explaining the education gradient in prevention among older adults with diabetes and hypertension in Latin America.

Objective: While the education gradient in prevention of chronic conditions is well documented, contributing factors remain underexplored. The contribution of income, knowledge and management of illness, market prices, cognitive ability, ability to act, perception about the future, and psychosocial constraints to the education gradient in prevention is examined.

Methods: To solve problems of unobservable factors that influence prevention and illness severity, we estimate the role of each component of the education gradient on prevention using data on diabetes and hypertension from five Latin American countries.

Lumbar spine flexion and extension extremes of motion in women of different age and racial groups: the WIN Study.

Study Design: Observational.

Objective: To provide normative values of lumbar flexion and extension for women of different age and racial groups.

Summary Of Background Data: Spinal range of motion (ROM) is one of the AMA Guides criteria used to estimate level of impairment and subsequent compensation entitlement.

Financing global health: mission unaccomplished.

Poor countries account for 56 percent of the global disease burden but less than 2 percent of global health spending. With the global commitment to the Millennium Development Goals in 2000, poverty and the deplorable health conditions of the world's poor have finally reached center stage in the international policy arena, and aid for health has greatly increased. This paper evaluates health financing in developing countries from global- and country-level perspectives and briefly describes the types of reforms needed in the global aid architecture to make effective use of this historic opportunity to improve the plight of the world's poor.