Background Universal health coverage (UHC) is difficult to achieve in settings short of medicines, health workers and health facilities. These characteristics define the majority of the small island developing states (SIDS), where population size negates the benefits of economies of scale. One option to alleviate this constraint is to import health services, rather than focus on domestic produc...

from the path-breaking work of John Rawls, the American philosopher. The capabilities approach has been applied more topically to the health sciences by the outstanding work of Sridhar Venkatapuram (Health Justice, Polity Press 2013), where the author makes a case that it is the right of all human beings to be entitled to the capacity to be healthy. In recursive mode, Sen et al. attempt to rein...

Medicines expenditure consumes a significant proportion of public health expenditure in Thailand, where Universal Health Coverage has been in place since 2002. The National List of Essential Medicines has been successfully used as a pharmaceutical benefits package for all public health plans. All patients are eligible for all medicines included in the list free of charge by law. Health economic...

BACKGROUND This study aimed to examine the availability, use, and affordability of medicines in urban China following the 2009 Health Care System Reform that included implementation of universal health coverage (UHC). METHODS This longitudinal study was performed in Hangzhou (high income, eastern China) and Baoji (lower income, western China). Five yearly household surveys were conducted (one...

Essential medicines are those that satisfy the priority healthcare needs of the population and are available at all times in adequate amounts, in the appropriate dosage forms with assured quality and at a price the individual and community can afford. Essential medicines are selected with due regard to disease prevalence, efficacy, safety and cost effectiveness. In most developing countries, th...

BACKGROUND With over one million Syrian refugee children in the region, we undertook this study to characterize care-seeking behaviors and health service utilization for child refugees with the aim of informing humanitarian programming for non-camp settings in Jordan. METHODS A survey of Syrian refugees living outside of camps in Jordan was conducted using a 125 × 12 cluster design with proba...

Canadians obtain prescription drug coverage through a patchwork of public insurance, private benefit plans and out-of-pocket payments. Prior evidence suggests that insurance coverage, in general, leads to higher utilization rates of essential medicines; it is unclear whether individuals with private insurance have better access to medicines. Using data from the 2008 Canadian Community Health Su...

BACKGROUND This study aims to rank policy concerns and policy-related research issues in order to identify policy and research gaps on access to medicines (ATM) in low- and middle-income countries in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), as perceived by policy makers, researchers, NGO and international organization representatives, as part of a global prioritization exercise. METHODS Data co...

BACKGROUND Generic medicines are essential to controlling health expenditures. Their market share is still small in France. The discourse and practices of prescribers may play a major role in their use. The purpose of this study was to explore the knowledge, attitudes and practices of general practitioners (GPs) toward generic medicines in two French regions with the lowest penetration rate of ...

INTRODUCTION This paper provides a snapshot of the health-care costs, out-of-pocket expenditures and available safety nets post-Typhoon Haiyan. METHODS This descriptive study used a survey and document review to report direct and indirect health-care costs and existing financial protection mechanisms used by households in two municipalities in the Philippines at one week and at seven months p...