Monday, January 25, 2010

[EQ] Focus on health inequalities - Eurohealth

Measuring and tackling health inequalities across Europe

Eurohealth on health inequalities - January 2010

Available online PDF [52p.] at: http://www.euro.who.int/Document/Obs/Eurohealth15_3.pdf

“….Measuring and tackling health inequalities across Europe Articles include a Commission perspective on reducing health inequalities in the EU; challenges with measurement and data availability; and examples of national strategic approaches in France, Hungary and the Netherlands.

Other articles on health policy developments include morbidity-based risk adjustment in Germany and improving health system performance in New Zealand.

Focus on health inequalities

1 Solidarity in health.
The European Commission sets out new actions on health inequalities

Ana Xavier, Charles Price and Fritz von Nordheim

4 Health inequality. Why is it important and can we actually measure it? - Cristina Masseria

7 Unmet need as an indicator of health care access - Sara Allin and Cristina Masseria

10 Measuring health inequalities in Europe. Methodological issues in the analysis of survey data - Owen O’Donnell

14 CEE countries. Data availability and methodological issues - Martin Bobak

16 Tackling health inequalities in the Netherlands - Mariël Droomers

19 What is the role of the health care system in reducing health inequalities in France? -Dominique Polton

22 Resource allocation policies to reduce avoidable health inequalities between Primary Care Trusts in England - Tom Hennell

24 How do welfare policies contribute to the reduction of health inequalities? - Olle Lundberg

Snapshot

28 Policy actions to tackle health inequalities in Hungary arising from the economic crisis - Peter Makara

Health policy developments

29 Morbidity-based risk adjustment in Germany. Long in coming, but worth the wait? - Matthew Gaskins and Reinhard Busse

32 Improving New Zealand’s health system performance: Challenges for the way forward - ` Robin Gauld

* * *
This message from the Pan American Health Organization, PAHO/WHO, is part of an effort to disseminate
information Related to: Equity; Health inequality; Socioeconomic inequality in health; Socioeconomic
health differentials; Gender; Violence; Poverty; Health Economics; Health Legislation; Ethnicity; Ethics;
Information Technology - Virtual libraries; Research & Science issues. [DD/ KMC Area]

“Materials provided in this electronic list are provided "as is". Unless expressly stated otherwise, the findings
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[EQ] Science and Innovation for Development

Science and Innovation for Development

Professor Sir Gordon Conway and Professor Jeff Waage, with Sara Delaney.
Published by UK Collaborative on Development Sciences (UKCDS) January 2010.
ISBN: 978 1 84129 0829

Scientific education, knowledge and research are crucial to solving development challenges.

Science as a tool for providing evidence and discovering solutions has been neglected recently by many key decision makers
Download the entire book (PDF 29.1MB) or by individual chapters below.

INTRODUCTION

· Contents, foreword by Professor Calestous Juma, preface, about the authors (PDF 418KB)

Part 1: MOBILISING SCIENCE FOR DEVELOPMENT

· Chapter 1 - The Nature of Science and Innovation (PDF 1.15MB)

· Chapter 2 - Appropriate Innovation (PDF 1.72MB)

· Chapter 3 - Building Partnerships for Innovation (PDF 2.31MB)

PART 2: SCIENCE AND MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS

· Chapter 4 - Progress towards the Millennium Development Goals (PDF 4.71MB)

· Chapter 5 - Combating Hunger (PDF 2.38MB)

· Chapter 6 - Improving Health (PDF 3.84MB)

· Chapter 7 - Achieving Environmental Sustainability (PDF 2.71MB)

PART 3: THE CHALLENGE OF CLIMATE CHANGE

· Chapter 8 - The Science of Climate Change (PDF 4.86MB)

· Chapter 9 - Adapting to Climate Change (PDF 5.16MB)

PART 4

· Conclusion (PDF 324KB)

Hard copies can be ordered through BCPC Bookshop

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[EQ] Poverty, Disconnected

Poverty, Disconnected

Ravi Kanbur is a Professor of Economics at Cornell University

IMF Finance & Development - December 2009

Available online at: http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2009/12/pdf/kanbur.pdf

‘……..Economists have long sought to improve on gross domestic product as a measure of growth and wellbeing. What is needed, many say, is a new way to gauge economic, environmental, and social sustainability. For those at the bottom of the income pyramid, living on a dollar a day or less, such musings may seem both irrelevant and farfetched. But work by the Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress—set up by the French government under the leadership of economists Joseph Stiglitz and Amartya Sen—represents the culmination of many years of effort to reduce reliance on per capita income growth or consumption.

Distributional indicators, such as poverty statistics constructed from household income and expenditure surveys, help spotlight the plight of the poor. In some countries, such as India, the announcement of official poverty figures is a major event with significant political and policy implications. And in the past two decades many countries have begun to conduct household surveys aimed at chronicling poverty, with the result that poverty statistics are more widely available across the globe.

What have we learned from the new data? Setting aside the effects of the crises of the late 2000s and looking back two decades from the mid-2000s, the broad facts can be classified into the following stylized patterns (Kanbur, forthcoming). Where there has been no economic growth, poverty has risen. This is true of many African and some Latin American countries. In a large number of countries, including the biggest ones, such as India and China, and even in some African countries, such as Ghana, there has been fast growth by historical standards, and poverty—the percentage of the population below the poverty line—has fallen, as measured by official data.

What is interesting, however, is the disconnect between the optimistic picture painted by these official data on poverty and the more pessimistic view of grassroots activists, civil society, and policymakers more generally……..”

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