BACKGROUND HIV disease itself is associated with increased healthcare utilization and healthcare expenditures. HIV-infected persons with lipodystrophy have been shown to have poor self-perceptions of health. We evaluated whether lipodystrophy in the HIV-infected population was associated with increased utilization of healthcare services and increased healthcare costs. OBJECTIVE To examine uti...

To contain escalating healthcare spending has become a great challenge for many countries around the world. Among all factors influencing medical costs, extensive studies have shown that adoption of healthy lifestyles such as not smoking, moderate drinking, eating healthy food, and exercising regularly can contribute to good health and lower the odds of having diseases that result in higher med...

OBJECTIVES To determine the healthcare costs of acute and chronic pain associated with herpes zoster. DESIGN Retrospective cohort analysis. SETTING Inpatient and outpatient care. PARTICIPANTS Patients were selected from Medicare, commercial insurance, and Medicaid claims databases if they had a diagnosis of herpes zoster or postherpetic neuralgia (PHN) or were prescribed analgesics after ...

BACKGROUND Recent research has suggested a relationship between vitamin D deficiency and risk of leukemia. PURPOSE Using data from the UN cancer database, GLOBOCAN, this study will determine whether a relationship exists for latitude and ultraviolet B (UVB) irradiance with incidence rates of leukemia in 175 countries. METHODS Multiple regression was used to analyze the independent associati...

BACKGROUND The majority of one billion smokers worldwide live in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) and the highest proportion of smokers in most of these countries belong to the lower socioeconomic groups. This study aimed to investigate the associations between tobacco use within households and expenditures on food, education, and healthcare in LMICs. METHODS Using data from the World...

BACKGROUND The return on investment for information technology (IT) has been the subject of much debate throughout the history of management information systems research. Often referred to as the productivity paradox, increased IT investments have not been consistently associated with increased productivity. Understanding individual IT factors that directly contribute to business value should p...

By employing a novel semi-parametric extrapolation method, the life expectancies after the first hospitalization for schizophrenia and the associated lifetime healthcare expenditures were both estimated. Based on the linkage between the National Health Insurance Research Database and the National Mortality Registry of Taiwan, we have established a schizophrenic cohort for 2000-2010 and followed...

A lthough countries around the world are grappling with the problem of rising health expenditures, the United States has reason for particular concern. Americans are dissatisfied with their healthcare system (Schoen et al., 2007) but also spend more than the citizens of other nations: 15 percent of GDP on health care in 2006, compared to 11 percent in France and Germany, 10 percent in Canada, a...

BACKGROUND Patient satisfaction is an important measure of healthcare quality as it offers information on the provider's success at meeting clients' expectations and is a key determinant of patients' perspective behavioral intention. The aim of this paper is first to assess the degree of patient satisfaction, and second, to study the relationship between patient satisfaction of healthcare syste...