The Lse Companion To Health Policy

The LSE Companion to Health Policy covers a wide range of conceptual and practical issues from a number of different perspectives introducing the reader to, and summarising, the vast literature that analyses the complexities of health policy. The Companion also assesses the current state of the art.

Health policy is a wide-ranging subject covering many academic disciplines, but what most studies in health policy have in common is an interest in applying theory to improve practice. This Companion brings academic rigour to bear evidence on a range of central areas within health policy. It covers key issues on the quality, access and inequalities in health and health care; supply and health markets; insurance and expenditures; pharmaceuticals and new technologies; ageing and long-term care; and behaviour and health production.

This unique Companion on health policy contains the most important features for health system reform at a time of funding constraints and will therefore hold great appeal for policy analysts and makers, students, academics and management professionals.

Contents:

Introduction
Alistair McGuire and Joan Costa-Font

PART I: QUALITY, ACCESS AND INEQUALITIES
1. Inequalities in Health: Why Do We Care? How Do We Care? What Can We Do About Them?
Cristina Hernández-Quevedo and Joan Costa-Font

2. Strengthening Community Participation in Primary Health Care: Experiences from South Africa
Andrew Gibbs and Catherine Campbell

3. Socioeconomic Status and Access to Health Care: The Quandary of Transition Economies
Heba A. Elgazzar

4. Quality of Ambulatory Care: Hospitalisations for Ambulatory Care Sensitive Conditions
Lucia Kossarova

PART II: SUPPLY AND HEALTH CARE MARKETS
5. Choice in Health Care: Drivers and Consequences
Valentina Zigante, Joan Costa-Font and Zack Cooper

6. A Million Years of Waiting: Competing Accounts and Comparative Experiences of Hospital Waiting-time Policy
Alec Morton and R. Gwyn Bevan

7. Measuring Access to Health Care in Europe
Sara Allin and Cristina Masseria

PART III: INSURANCE AND EXPENDITURES
8. How are Rising Health Care Expenditures Explained?
Alistair McGuire, Victoria Serra-Sastre and Maria Raikou

9. Providing Financial Incentives for Improved Quality and Efficiency: A Literature Review of the Effects of Payment for Performance (P4P) Policies
Irene Papanicolas

10. Social Health Protection: Policy Options for Low- and Middle-income Countries
Philipa Mladovsky

PART IV: PHARMACEUTICALS AND NEW TECHNOLOGIES
11. Technology Diffusion in Health Care: Conceptual Aspects and Evidence
Victoria Serra-Sastre and Alistair McGuire

12. Do International Launch Strategies of Pharmaceutical Corporations Respond to Changes in the Regulatory Environment?
Nebibe Varol, Joan Costa-Font and Alistair McGuire

PART V: AGEING AND LONG-TERM CARE
13. Proximity to Death and Health Care Costs
Michael Murphy

14. The Health and Social Care Divide in the United Kingdom
Catherine Henderson

15. Barriers to and Opportunities for Private Long-term Care Insurance in England: What Can We Learn from Other Countries?
Adelina Comas-Herrera, Rebecca Butterfield, José-Luis Fernández, Raphael Wittenberg and Joshua M. Wiener

PART VI: BEHAVIOUR AND HEALTH PRODUCTION
16. Historical Trends of Mortality and its Implications for Health Policies in England and Wales: The Cause-of-Death Approach
Mariachiara Di Cesare and Michael Murphy

17. Risk Research and Health-related Behaviours
Caroline Rudisill

18. The Doctor–Patient Relationship: A Review of the Theory and Policy Implications
Charitini Stavropoulou

Index