OBJECTIVES To estimate the annual cost to patients, the health service and society of infectious intestinal disease (IID) from Campylobacter, norovirus and rotavirus. DESIGN Secondary data analysis. SETTING The United Kingdom population, 2008-9. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Cases and frequency of health services usage due to these three pathogens; associated healthcare costs; direct, out-of-pock...

BACKGROUND Most low- and middle-income countries (LMIC) rely significantly on private health expenditure in the form of out-of-pocket payments (OOP) and voluntary health insurance (VHI). This paper assesses VHI expenditure trends in LMIC and explores possible explanations. This illuminates challenges deriving from changes in VHI expenditure as countries aim to progress equitably towards univers...

Objective: To determine costs related to living with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), and to identify the association between health status—as measured by the Health Status Questionnaire short form-36 (SF-36) and the disease specific index Health Assessment Questionnaire (HAQ)— and the social impact of RA. Methods: A prospective cohort study was carried out on 81 patients with RA who completed four c...

There is evidence that the economic crisis in Greece has substantially affected patients and health care services, with chronic patients forming a particularly vulnerable group. The aim of this study was to investigate whether and in what way the current economic environment has affected patients with selected chronic conditions. A cross sectional study was carried out with a sample size of 120...

BACKGROUND In order to raise African countries probability of achieving the United Nations Millennium Development Goals by 2015, there is need to increase and more efficiently use domestic and external funding to strengthen health systems infrastructure in order to ensure universal access to quality health care. The objective of this paper is to examine the changes that have occurred in African...

Background One common challenge to social systems is achieving equity in financial contributions and preventing financial loss. Because of the large and unpredictable nature of some costs, achieving this goal in the health system presents important and unique problems. The present study investigated the Household Financial Contributions (HFCs) to the health system.   Methods The study investiga...

OBJECTIVE To determine costs related to living with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), and to identify the association between health status-as measured by the Health Status Questionnaire short form-36 (SF-36) and the disease specific index Health Assessment Questionnaire (HAQ)-and the social impact of RA. METHODS A prospective cohort study was carried out on 81 patients with RA who completed four co...

Analysed in this paper are national health accounts estimates for 191 WHO Member States for 1997, using simple comparisons and linear regressions to describe spending on health and how it is financed. The data cover all sources - out-of-pocket spending, social insurance contributions, financing from government general revenues and voluntary and employment-related private insurance - classified ...

The presence of voluntary deductibles in the Swiss and Dutch mandatory health insurance has important implications for the respective risk equalization systems. In a theoretical analysis, we discuss the consequences of equalizing three types of expenditures: the net claims that are reimbursed by the insurer, the out-of-pocket expenditures and the expenditure savings due to moral hazard reductio...