In 2003, the United States had fewer practicing physicians, practicing nurses, and acute care bed days per capita than the median country in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Nevertheless, U.S. health spending per capita was almost two and a half times the per capita health spending of the median OECD country. One proposal for both lowering health spending and im...

Cambodia is an agriculture and developing country. A large proportion of the population, 85% live in rural areas, and only 15% live in urban areas. It is estimated that currently, approximately 34.7% of the total population are living below the poverty line. The two most salient health-related problems linked to poverty in Cambodia are malnutrition and access to health care. Republic of Korea i...

This short paper uses cross-country data on per capita cigarette consumption and selected socio-economic variables to explain inter-country differentials in consumption. It is found that the proportion of the aged in the total population and higher literacy among women have relatively greater and positive impact on cigarette consumption. Even after controlling for the effect of the two variable...

Standards for vaccine production have been increasing at a rapid rate. Current standards of good manufacturing practice (GMP) had been thought to be out of the reach of developing country vaccine producers, many of whom are in the public sector, overseen by unvalidated national regulatory authorities (NRAs). With the advent of the GMP regulations in 1963 and their application to vaccine product...

The role of developing country commitments and actions to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions is central to worldwide progress in reducing the risks of anthropogenic climate change. Industrialized-country governments and publics are increasingly concerned that their emissions reduction commitments are unrequited by action in some of the world’s largest emitters, especially India and China. Develo...

The concept of sustainability has been a part of theory and practice in agriculture for a long time, but the diverse roots of the concept have led to a number of different definitions of sustainable agriculture. This paper provides an overview of the policy development of sustainable agriculture in Finland by examining internal and external discourses of sustainability and the evolution in diff...

According to the World-Health Organization, over 12 million people die every year from heart attacks, strokes and other forms of cardiovascular disease.1 The direct and indirect costs for treatment of cardiovascular disease are the single largest health care expense in every industrialized country of the world. Despite modest success in some countries in lowering the mortality rate from heart a...

In the last twenty years, countries throughout the world have experienced severe bouts of financial instability. Banking crises have become so common that it is the rare country that has not experienced one, while full-scale financial crises have struck some economies with devastating effects. Financial instability, although a particularly severe problem for emerging-market countries which suff...

In order to evaluate the relationship between dietary fats and cholesterol with the incidence of heart disease and the potential for heart disease risk reduction, one must recognize the enormous impact of cardiovascular disease on the health of the population. In the United States, cardiovascular disease afflicts over 65 million individuals and accounts for almost one million deaths each year. ...