Sir, In 2005–2007 we surveyed mental health services in Lebanon [1]. At the time, we found a paucity of community-based mental health services, deficiencies in education programmes for professionals and the public, misallocation of health care finances, and lack of a clear governmental policy on delivery of mental health services and prevention of mental illness. Several barriers related to the...

Does health expenditure reduce infant mortality rates (IMRs)? To answer such important question we disaggregate health expenditure into private and public and divide the countries into two groups according to their level of development (income). The results obtained from employing OLS and panel data techniques on 160 countries show strong negative relation between health expenditure and IMRs. H...

INTRODUCTION For many years political and professional concerns have centred on the health service access of Norway's modern Indigenous Sami people. Thirty years ago, a study determined that a low rate of health expenditure on Sami patients had lead to inferior health services for the Sami people, with their average consultation rate 6 times lower than the Norwegian national average. Since 1980...

BACKGROUND There is scant research that simultaneously analyzes the joint effects of long-term unemployment, poverty and public expenditure policies on poorer self-perceived health during the financial crisis. The aim of the study is to analyze the joint relationship between long-term unemployment, social deprivation, and regional social public expenditure on one side, and self-perceived health...

INTRODUCTION It is well-known that the prevalence of chronic diseases is high among older people, especially those who are poor. Moreover, chronic diseases can result in catastrophic health expenditure. The relationship between chronic diseases and their financial burden on households is thus double-sided, as financial difficulties can give rise to, and result from, chronic diseases. Our aim wa...

This paper examines the temporal interdependence between gross domestic product and health expenditure per capita for Pakistan in an augmented Solow growth model suggested by Mankiw, Romer and Weil (1992) for the period of 1973-2001. This paper is an extension of the MRW model by incorporating health capital proxied by health expenditure to the augmented Solow model. Moreover, an openness varia...

BACKGROUND OF CONTEXT Priority setting and resource allocation across various healthcare functions are critical issues in health policy and strategic decision making. As health resources are limited while there are so many health challenges to resolve, consumers and payers have to make difficult decisions about expenditure allocation. OBJECTIVE Our research focus on the (dis)agreement between...

This paper investigates the effect of health-related expenditure on household welfare in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Serbia and Kosovo, all of which have undertaken major health sector reform. Two methodologies are used: (i) the incidence and intensity of 'catastrophic' health care expenditure, and (ii) the effect of out-of-pocket payments on poverty headcount and poverty gap m...