the topic of how cost-effectiveness information informs priority setting in healthcare remains important to both policy and practice. this commentary considers the study carried out by eckard and colleagues in sweden. in it we distinguish between the conditions at national and local levels and put forward some recommendations for research into local priority setting in particular.

Agenda-setting is a crucial step for inclusive health policies in the low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Enlightened by Ha et al manuscript, this commentary paper argues that ‘political impetus’ is the key to the successful agenda-setting of health policies in LMICs, though other determinants may also play the role during the process. This Vietnamese case study presents a good example fo...

Background Global health policy is created largely through a collaborative process between development agencies and aid-recipient governments, yet it remains unclear whether governments retain ownership over the creation of policy in their own countries. An assessment of the power structure in this relationship and its influence over agenda-setting is thus the first step towards understanding w...

Background: There is limited understanding about the development of the online one-stop shops for evidence in a limited-resource setting, such as Uganda. This study aimed to provide a comprehensive account of the development process of the online resource for local policy and systems-relevant information in this setting. Methods: We utilized a case study design to address our objective where ...

background maternal health remains a central policy concern in vietnam. with a commitment to achieving the millennium development goal (mdg) 5 target of maternal mortality rate (mmr) of 70/100 000 by 2015, the ministry of health (moh) issued the national plan for safe motherhood (npsm) 2003-2010. in 2008, reproductive health, including safe motherhood (sm) became a national health target progra...

OBJECTIVES Because of the increasing prevalence of dementia worldwide, combined with limited healthcare expenditures, a better understanding of the main cost drivers of dementia in different care settings is needed. METHODS A systematic review of cost-of-illness (COI) studies in dementia was conducted from 2003 to 2012, searching the following databases: PubMed (Medline), Cochrane Library, Sc...

Background There is a growing body of literature on evidence-informed priority setting. However, the literature on the use of evidence when setting healthcare priorities in low-income countries (LICs), tends to treat the healthcare system (HCS) as a single unit, despite the existence of multiple programs within the HCS, some of whic...