Health Equity: 06/14/10

Monday, June 14, 2010

[EQ] Medical tourism today: What is the state of existing knowledge?

Medical tourism today: What is the state of existing knowledge?

Laura Hopkins a, Ronald Labonté b, Vivien Runnels b and Corinne Packer b

A School of Public Health, Health Sciences Building, University of Saskatchewan, Canada

B Globalization and Health Equity, Institute of Population Health, University of Ottawa, Canada

Journal of Public Health Policy (2010) 31, 185–198. doi:10.1057/jphp.2010.10

“……One manifestation of globalization is medical tourism. As its implications remain largely unknown, we reviewed claimed benefits and risks. Driven by high health-care costs, long waiting periods, or lack of access to new therapies in developed countries, most medical tourists (largely from the United States, Canada, and Western Europe) seek care in Asia and Latin America.

Although individual patient risks may be offset by credentialing and sophistication in (some) destination country facilities, lack of benefits to poorer citizens in developing countries offering medical tourism remains a generic equity issue. Data collection, measures, and studies of medical tourism all need to be greatly improved if countries are to assess better both the magnitude and potential health implications of this trade……..”

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[EQ] Best practice in estimating the costs of alcohol - Recommendations for future studies

Best practice in estimating the costs of alcohol – Recommendations for future studies

Edited by:Lars Møller, Regional Adviser a.i., WHO Regional Office for Europe

Srdan Matic, Unit Head, WHO Regional Office for Europe

World health Organization WHO Regional Office for Europe
2010, vi + 64 pages - ISBN 978 92 890 4207 9

Available online PDF [72p.] at: http://bit.ly/bSet1F

This report aims to summarize best practice in estimating the attributable and avoidable costs of alcohol, and to make recommendations for making such estimates in future studies. It discusses the conceptual basis for such cost studies, and examines the conceptual and methodological challenges for each type of cost in turn. It recommends:

1. changes in the terminology used;

2. the consistent and explicit consideration of external costs;

3. more sophisticated modelling of the effect of policy on costs;

4. more robust attempts to quantify alcohol’s causal effect on harm and costs;

5. a demonstration project using new methodologies;

6. the use of scenarios rather than existing sensitivity analyses;

7. the importing of data from other studies rather than simply omitting certain types of cost;

8. consideration of future health and resource costs; and

9. not using the human capital method for valuing the labour costs of premature mortality within the main estimates.

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[EQ] Bridging the gaps between research, policy and practice in low- and middle-income countries

Bridging the gaps between research, policy and practice in low- and middle-income countries:
a survey of researchers

John N. Lavis, G. Emmanuel Guindon, David Cameron, Boungnong Boupha, Masoumeh Dejman, Eric J.A. Osei, Ritu Sadana
Research to Policy and Practice Study Team

CMAJ • June 15, 2010; 182 (9). doi:10.1503/cmaj.081165 Canadian Medical Association

Available online at: http://bit.ly/aSyDcH

“…..Many international statements have urged researchers,policy-makers and health care providers to collaborate in effortsto bridge the gaps between research, policy and practice inlow- and middle-income countries. We surveyed researchers in10 countries about their involvement in such efforts.

…. We surveyed 308 researchers who conducted researchon one of four clinical areas relevant to the Millennium DevelopmentGoals (prevention of malaria, care of women seeking contraception,care of children with diarrhea and care of patients with tuberculosis)in each of 10 low- and middle-income countries (China, Ghana,India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Laos, Mexico, Pakistan, Senegal andTanzania). We focused on their engagement in three promisingbridging activities and examined system-level, organizationaland individual correlates of these activities………”.

Bridging the gaps between research, policy and practice in low- and middle-income countries:
a survey of health care providers

G. Emmanuel Guindon, John N. Lavis, Francisco Becerra-Posada, Hossein Malek-Afzali, Guang Shi, C. Ashok K. Yesudian, Steven J. Hoffman for the

Research to Policy and Practice Study Team

From the Centre for Health Economics and Policy Analysis (Guindon, Lavis), the Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics (Guindon, Lavis), the McMaster Health Forum (Lavis, Hoffman), McMaster University, Hamilton, Ont.; the Council on Health Research for Development (Becerra-Posada), Mexico City, Mexico; the Health Research Institute (Malek-Afzali), Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran; the Ministry of Health (Shi), Beijing, China; the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (Yesudian), Mumbai, India; and the Faculty of Law, the Department of Political Science and the Munk Centre for International Studies (Hoffman), University of Toronto, Toronto, Ont.
CMAJ • June 15, 2010; 182 (9).; doi:10.1503/cmaj.081165 Canadian Medical Association

Available online at: http://bit.ly/cbiyG7

“………..Gaps continue to exist between research-based evidence and clinical practice. We surveyed health care providers in 10 low- and middle-income countries about their use of research-based evidence and examined factors that may facilitate or impede such use.

………..We surveyed 1499 health care providers practising in one of four areas relevant to the Millennium Development Goals (prevention of malaria, care of women seeking contraception, care of children with diarrhea and care of patients with tuberculosis) in each of China, Ghana, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Laos, Mexico, Pakistan, Senegal and Tanzania………”

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