On this topic, Bob Hudson w1x previously observed that ‘‘It is now de riguer to talk of the shift from hierarchy to network in public sector governance « but what is often lacking is an understanding of how to analyse network governance’’. In literature, many commentators indeed point out that networks are unlike markets and hierarchies. However, the current authors argue that such forms are no...

The health care of the twentieth century was characterized by its key concept, cure, i.e., curing disease with medical technology. As a result, specialists, i.e., physicians trained for cure, were highly valued, while general practitioners, i.e., physicians trained for care, were neglected. This tendency was especially notable in Japan. In contrast to Western countries, general practice is not ...

Housing for the twenty-first century will be shaped by the changes that are occurring in society. These include the demographics of the occupant, the products and materials used for construction and furnishing, and the basic use of the structure. An aging population will have different demands on design and function. The health concerns of an aging population encompass chronic degenerative dise...

WITH BIRTH RATES FALLING, the last gasp of the population explosion may add as few as 2 billion more people to the world's population. Eight billion is the UN's peak population figure, attained by 2050, in the low/medium scenario of its 1996 projection series. (The medium trajectory plateaus at around 10.5 billion later in the century.) If 2 billion is all, however, most of them will come in th...

Economics as a subject matter has been given a variety of definitions over the last 200 years, however all the definitions have a similar concept that they lean towards, a general principle one can say. The definitions are not wrong, this paper does not seek to prove that they are wrong, but only to show they where right for their time, a subject matter like economics, though studied over the c...

There is little argument that, in an era dominated by the Internet and ubiquitous satellite television . . . by the cell phone with voice activation, wireless Web access, e-mail, and PC interconnectivity . . . by the car with on-board GPSenabled computer, satellite music, and radio . . . by the everexpanding universe of electronic games . . . immersive environments . . . 3D simulations . . . no...

• The NHS remains one of the world’s better health care systems. But the proportion of the UK’s GDP allocated to health and social care is only about three quarters of that now spent by leading European nations. To meet changing needs health and social care providers in England must improve their capacity to offer convenient access to preventive and ‘common need’ diagnostic and treatment servic...

I n its launch issue in October 2004, PLoS Medicine signaled a strong interest in creating a journal that went beyond a biological view of health to incorporate socioeconomic, ethical, and cultural dimensions. For example, that fi rst issue contained a policy paper on how the health community should respond to violent political confl ict [1], a debate on whether health workers should screen all...