Approaching health as a basic human right has a profound impact on the way we treat it politically. Viewing health as a public good--with both individual and collective dimensions--shapes the nature of health policies. The concept of a right to health can be used to formulate policies, organize systems and services, and develop actions that promote better health outcomes. Building on experience...

Across Western Europe, social welfare regimes are under stress. Social scientists have been announcing “the crisis of the welfare state” for a half century-and now a crisis may actually be upon us. As a result, health care policy is up for political grabs. Everywhere states are rethinking their approaches to health care; competitive forces are stirring, often organized and directed by public of...

OBJECTIVE To analyze whether the changes observed in the level and distribution of resources for maternal health and family planning (MHFP) programs from 2003 to 2012 were consistent with the financial goals of the related policies. MATERIALS AND METHODS A longitudinal descriptive analysis of the Mexican Reproductive Health Subaccounts 2003-2012 was performed by financing scheme and health fu...

martin powell makes the point that the death of the national health service (nhs) is constantly asserted without criteria. this article suggests that the nhs is many things, which makes criteria unstable. the alignment of interests in the structure of the nhs enables both overheated rhetoric and political strength, and that pluralization of provision might actually undermine that alignment over...

The Cold War’s end stimulated new interest in a long-standing UN institution: the World Summit. World summits are one-time conferences organized by the UN to address global issues such as environment, housing, or food. They involve thousands of policy makers working together over several years to develop consensual visions of principles and possible solutions to some of humankind’s most challen...

The workshop was opened with welcoming remarks by Mr. Ulrich Mohr, Head of Section, International Policy on Telecommunications and Posts, BMWI, and Mr. Sam Paltridge of Information, Computer, and Communications Policy Division, OECD. Both speakers introduced general issues in relation to Internet traffic exchange and a summary of recent discussions in OECD on this subject. Mr. Paltridge noted r...

HEALTH AND FOREIGN POLICY — unlikely bedfellows? Perhaps. .. Current world interest in the ties between security, poverty, health, human rights, globalisation, and trade was an important backdrop to the symposium on Health and Foreign Policy: Scope for Australian Engagement , held in Sydney on 18–19 September 2003. Whether such a meeting would have taken place before the 2001 attack on the Worl...

This study shows that 1936-1990 preschool blood lead trends explain 65% of the 1948-2001 variation in USA mental retardation (MR) prevalence, 45% of the 1953-2003 variation in the average scholastic achievement test (SAT) verbal score, and 65% of the 1953-2003 variation in the average SAT math score. These temporal relationships are characterized by best-fit time lags (highest R(2) and t-value ...

In our 2001 article in the Journal of Political Economy, we show that any non-welfarist method of policy assessment violates the Pareto principle. In their Comment, Fleurbaey, Tungodden, and Chang question whether our result is fully general without imposing what they regard to be strong assumptions (transitivity and independence). However, as we explain in this Reply, their argument is irrelev...

Choosing death, whether as a terminally ill patient refusing further treatment or as a death row inmate refusing further appeals of a death sentence, invariably raises questions of mental state. In answering them, we strive to assess diagnoses objectively and employ competency criteria that balance preservation of autonomous decision-making with more paternalistic goals. Two recent developments...