Policy-makers, stakeholders and knowledge brokers (including researchers) all
have a great deal they can learn from one another. Policy-makers need access
to good-quality health systems information that they can apply to a local issue.
Stakeholders may seek to influence health policy as well as make deci...
During the last decades the prevalence of childhood and adolescent obesity in Europe has grown. Although it is possibly levelling off in some areas of Europe, the scale of childhood obesity and its associated morbidities and costs remains considerable. Obese children and adolescents are more likely than ...
International health system performance comparisons have the potential to provide a rich source of evidence as well as policy influence.• Country comparisons that are not conducted with properly validated measures and unbiased policy interpretations may prompt adverse policy impacts and so caution is r...
Gender differences in health and in how well health systems and health care
services meet the needs of women and men are well known: in Europe, there
are variations in terms of life expectancy, the risk of mortality and morbidity,
health behaviours and in the use of health care services. There is also in...
The terms vertical and integrated are widely used in health service delivery, but
each describes a range of phenomena. In practice, the dichotomy between
them is not rigid, and the extent of verticality or integration varies between
programmes – including (1) a vertically funded, managed, delivered and...
Policy issues• Health technology assessment (HTA) is an important tool for informing effective regulation of the diffusion and use of health technologies.• The key policy issues surrounding the use of HTA fall into three areas: (a) the bodies, decision-makers and other stakeholders involved, (b) the ...
The international migration of health professionals has been a growingfeature of the global health agenda since the late 1990s. In Europe, theaccession of more countries to the European Union (EU) since 2004 hasincreased the scope for mobility among health workers and raisedadditional issues within the E...
In some countries, pressure is growing to demonstrate that practising physicians
continue to meet acceptable standards, driven in part by concerns that the
knowledge obtained during basic training may rapidly become out of date. This
takes various forms, from expectations – in some cases backed by vari...
Improved health care, lifestyle changes and changing demography mean that
more people are living longer and often with chronic diseases that cannot
currently be cured. Advances in health care that support longer life are to be
celebrated, but health care systems cannot cope with the increasing incidence
...
Within the last decades, social exclusion, disparities, and absolute poverty – almost 3 billion people living on less than US $2.00 per day – have grown despite globalization and rising per-capita income in many developing nations. Income ratios of the richest 20% of the population to the poorest 20%...
