Previous surveys of neonatal medicine in China have not collected comprehensive information on workforce, investment, health care practice, and disease expenditure. The goal of the present study was to develop a national database of neonatal care units and compare present outcomes data in conjunction with health care practices and costs. We summarized the above components by extracting data fro...

Background In planning for universal health coverage, many countries have been examining their fiscal decentralization policies with the goal of increasing efficiency and equity via “additionalities.” The concept of “additionality,” when the government of a lower administrative level increases the funding allocated to a particular issue when extra funds are present, is often used in these...

BACKGROUND Although nearly half of bladder cancer cases are due to smoking, the cause of nearly half is unexplained. PURPOSE This study aims to determine whether an inverse association exists between ultraviolet B (UVB) irradiance and incidence rates of bladder cancer worldwide. METHODS This study used an ecologic approach. Age-adjusted incidence rates of bladder cancer from 2002 were obtai...

OBJECTIVE To examine, for essential anti-cancer medicines, the alignment of national lists of essential medicines and national reimbursable medicines lists with the World Health Organization's (WHO's) Model Lists. METHODS National medicine lists for 135 countries with per-capita gross national incomes below 25 000 United States dollars in 2015 were compared with WHO's 2013 and 2015 Model List...

CONTEXT Wide variations in Medicare expenditures exist across regions, but little is known about whether beneficiaries residing in low-expenditure regions perceive receiving lower-quality care than those in high-expenditure regions. OBJECTIVE To evaluate how Medicare beneficiaries' perceptions of their health care are related to per capita expenditure in the areas where they live. DESIGN, SET...

The southern state of Kerala, India was seriously affected by a chikungunya epidemic in 2007. As this outbreak was the first of its kind, the morbidity incurred by the epidemic was a challenge to the state's public health system. A cross sectional survey was conducted in five districts of Kerala that were seriously affected by the epidemic, using a two-stage cluster sampling technique to select...

OBJECTIVES We examined the association between social expenditures of the local government and the mortality level in Korea, 2004 to 2010. METHODS We used social expenditure data of 230 local governments during 2004 to 2010 from the Social Expenditure Database prepared by the Korean Institute for Health and Social Affairs. Fixed effect panel data regression analysis was adopted to look for as...

BACKGROUND Patients with solitary cysticercus granuloma (SCG) develop acute symptomatic seizures because of the inflammatory response of the brain and the seizures are self-limiting. Thus seizure disorder associated with SCG provides a good model to study the total cost of illness (COI). MATERIALS AND METHODS COI of new-onset seizures associated with SCG was studied in 59 consecutive patients...

OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to assess the economic burden of disability of school-aged children and to evaluate the association between disabilities and household socioeconomic status, as well as the economic burden of disability and household socioeconomic status in Vietnam. MATERIALS AND METHODS Nationally representative data for 9,882 children aged 6 to 17 years from the Vietnam Ho...