BACKGROUND In the UK, early years policy emphasizes that all families should have access to support tailored to their individual needs. Knowledge of the determinants of health service use should help to inform rational and equitable planning and delivery of services to parents. OBJECTIVES We seek to investigate the determinants of primary care service use in families with preschool children. ...

Substantial racial and ethnic disparities persist in children's health and use of health services in the United States. Although equitable access to primary care services is widely promoted as one of the most feasible remedies to reduce health disparities, there has only recently been an effort to assess its quality, particularly for children. Racial and socioeconomic differences in access to c...

ABORIGINAL COMMUNITY CONTROLLED health services (ACCHSs) across Australia are supported by predominantly non-Indigenous doctors. As of 2005, there were between eight and ten Indigenous doctors working in ACCHSs. For many non-Indigenous doctors, working in an Aboriginal health service has been a choice to do something different and to try to make a difference. One of us (K S P) moved to Townsvil...

The World Health Organization defines universal health coverage (UHC) as a situation in which all people who need health services receive them, without incurring financial hardship. UHC is currently perceived as a crucial component of sustainable development and listed as one of the possible goals of the post2015 development agenda. Very soon after its independence in 1956, Tunisia made health ...

BACKGROUND Within the decentralization framework of Government, the Ministry of Health (MoH) Nepal initiated the decentralization of primary care services closer to citizens. This paper aims to examine and understand the effect of decentralization at the district health service from the perspectives of service users and providers. METHODS Using non-probability purposive sampling, we conducted...

A recent report to the Department of Health and Human Services by Marshall and Perry4 noted that "centers of excellence" were the most cost-effective method to deliver health care services. While these authors were referring to organ transplants, it is obvious that a physician and a facility that service a large volume of the same type of case have better outcomes and less complications,s There...

BACKGROUND The major objectives of this study were to evaluate the existing primary health care service provisions in the public and private sector and utilization of the services, and to assess the existing manpower and material resources. METHODS Data were collected through interviews with the primary health care providers. Data were also collected from the records maintained at the polycli...

BACKGROUND The Family Health Project (FHP) was implemented in the province of Sindh during 1992-99 with the assistance of the World Bank. The project was designed to bring substantial changes in health care system for achieving improvement in the health status by strengthening the quality and integration of primary health care services. One of the major components of the project was to develop ...

This paper presents a review of the Dimension Matrix for Evaluation of the Brazilian Health System that was initially developed in 2003, as well as a conceptual update of some of the sub-dimensions for the evaluation of health service performance, namely effectiveness, access, efficiency and appropriateness of health care. It also describes the indicator selection process as well as the results...