Does earmarked donor funding make it more or less likely that developing countries will allocate their resources towards programmes that yield the greatest health benefits?

It should not be assumed that earmarked donor funding automatically increases the allocation of developing-country resources towards programmes that yield the greatest health benefits. Sometimes it does, sometimes it does not--how the funding is designed can influence this. This is true particularly in the longer term, once the earmarked funding has ended.

External quality assurance for cervical cytology in developing countries. Experience in Peru and Nicaragua.

Given interest from the professionals concerned, an external quality assurance scheme for cervical cytology can successfully be introduced in developing countries. This is a very important precondition if screening programs are to be expanded and decreases in mortality from cervical cancer are to occur in developing countries. Nicaragua and Peru have been experimenting with an external quality assurance system adapted from the Scottish and Northern Ireland scheme.

Demand for, access to and use of community mental health care: lessons from a demonstration project in India and Pakistan.

Background: A widely promoted model of mental health care and prevention appropriate to many low-income countries is one that is integrated into the local primary health care system.

Aims: To examine the influence of health-seeking behaviours (demand-side factors) and the access to/availability of services (supply-side factors) on local service utilisation patterns for people with common mental disorders.

Method: Two rural catchment populations outside Bangalore (India) and Rawalpindi (Pakistan), one with the standard primary health care system, the other with additional mental health care training and support, were screened for common mental disorders.

[Health inequalities in Panama].

Objectives: To document socioeconomic inequalities in health and health services in Panama and thus create a baseline for the prospective monitoring of the impact of health policies on equity.

Methods: Analysis of data from the 1997 Living Standards Measurement Survey, the 1990 National Population Census and birth registration data for 1996. The relative index of inequality and concentration coefficient were calculated for a wide range of indicators of out-of-pocket health expenditure, access, utilization and quality of health services and of health outcomes.

Does intelligence account for the link between maternal literacy and child survival?

The strong and consistent correlation between maternal education and child health is now well known, and numerous studies have shown that wealth and income cannot explain the link. Policy-makers have therefore assumed that the relationship is causal and explicitly advocate schooling as a child health intervention. However, there are other factors which could account for the apparent effect of maternal education on child morbidity and mortality, one of which is intelligence.

Allocating resources: community involvement is not easy.

Resources for health care are limited in all societies; decisions have to be made about who gets what health care. A case study is discussed. Jaymee Bowen was a British child whose Health Authority refused to provide free treatment for her advanced leukaemia.

Capacity building in health economics opportunities for training in developing countries.

This paper provides an overview of the opportunities available for training in health economics in the regions of Africa, Asia and Latin America, following a WHO forum on Capacity Building in Health Economics held in Geneva in December 1995. It describes in brief the training opportunities available throughout Asia, Africa and Latin America. It then gives a detailed resume of courses available for students and professionals at Chulanlongkorn University, Thailand, the University of Cape Town, South Africa and the University of the West Indies, Trinidad.