In interviews with Health Affairs, government ministers in Germany and the Netherlands talk up market-oriented refinements to their universal health insurance systems for the future. But the news from Europe isn’t all happy: an unsettling survey in the United Kingdom finds that some physicians believe that the market will unravel the government-owned and -operated National […]

In a comparison of 18 countries, the United States ranked at the bottom for number of deaths that could have been prevented by timely and effective health care. Not only were U.S. rates among the worst, the rate of improvement from 1997-98 to 2002-03 was the smallest.

Over the past two months, highly read posts on the Health Affairs Blog looked at President Bush’s veto of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), a new report from the Congressional Budget Office on health spending trends, analysis of the number of uninsured Americans, and discussion of health reform solutions. Posts with a global […]

Editor’s Note: This is part two of a two-part blog by several of the 2006-2007 Commonwealth Fund Harkness Fellows. Part one, which ran yesterday, describes the extent to which these international scholars felt able to make meaningful choices in their interactions with the American health care system. In part two below, the authors propose changes […]

Editor’s Note: This is part one of a two-part blog by several of the 2006-2007 Commonwealth Fund Harkness Fellows. The post below describes the extent to which these international scholars felt able to make meaningful choices in their interactions with the American health care system. In part two of their blog, which will appear on […]

Editor’s Note: The following letter from Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS) was originally published in the September/October 2007 issue of Health Affairs. The letter describes Sen. Brownback’s use of a Health Affairs paper as the basis for his Elimination of Neglected Diseases (END) amendment to the FDA Revitalization Act. President Bush signed a version of the […]

Editor’s Note: Health Affairs’deputy editor Parmeeth Atwal spoke recently with Ashok Alexander, director of Avahan, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s HIV prevention initiative in India. Health Affairs devoted its current July/August issue to “Global Health Financing” with support from the Gates Foundation.
The Numbers
Atwal: The World Health Organization (WHO) and Indian health officials have disagreed […]

At least 150 million people worldwide suffer financial catastrophe each year and 100 million are pushed under the poverty level simply because they need to pay for health services, according to new World Health Organization (WHO) research published July 16 in the July/August issue of Health Affairs. The researchers found that countries could reduce the extent of health-related […]

What role should the U.S. government play in confronting global health challenges? What are Congress’s priorities for the reauthorization of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), and how much should be invested in research to help stem the AIDS pandemic? How can we protect 150 million people globally from suffering financial catastrophe each […]

Google.org, the philanthropic arm of Google, has just this week launched a blog that will focus on its areas of concern: global public health, climate change, and economic development and poverty.

Tuberculosis is being a seen as a greater threat to world health now than at any time in the past half-century. The symbiosis of HIV/AIDS with TB in Africa, along with the emergence of multidrug resistant (MDR-TB) and extensively drug restistant TB (XDR-TB) have only heightened concerns in developing countries. Even in a developed country such […]

Yesterday, the Center for American Progress released a report on “Immigrants in the U.S. Health Care System: Five Myths That Misinform the American Public.” One of the hotly debated myths is the cost of medical care for such immigrants. A paper published in Health Affairs and cited in the new report found that “the foreign-born […]

Health Affairs is on the road this week and next. We’re currently exhibiting at the Global Health Council’s International Conference on Global Health in Washington, D.C., at the Omni Shoreham hotel until Friday, June 1. Health Affairs’ Deputy Editor for Global Health, Phil Musgrove will be at the booth in the exhibit hall to answer […]

Disparities in access to quality health care remain prevalent in the U.S. health care system. So states the National Healthcare Disparities Report (NHDR) to Congress. The NHDR and its companion, the National Healthcare Quality Report (NHQR), both produced by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), have served for years as critical gauges of […]

At the January 19 briefing for the new issue of Health Affairs on cardiovascular disease (CVD), David McAlary from the Voice of America asked the panelists whether rich countries are committing any significant resources to deal with noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), including CVD, in poor countries. Both Tom Gaziano, author of an article on CVD in […]

At a strategic moment when funding remains in limbo as unfinished business from the last Congress, the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) has significant successes to report, says recently appointed Global AIDS Coordinator Mark Dybul, M.D. Ambassador Dybul made his remarks at a January 4 Global Health Council policy forum.

The global health literature is rich in studies of the challenges and intricacies of translating slivers of economic surplus from the industrialized countries into effective health, education, and development programs in the poorer countries to the south. Donors often express frustration over unpredictable behavior, byzantine politics, incomprehensible values, and an apparent absence of accountability on […]

In a 2001 campaign at Yale University, students, scientists, and the organization Doctors Without Borders asked Yale to help increase access to the AIDS drug d4t in South Africa. Yale scientists discovered and patented d4t; the university subsequently licensed the drug to Bristol-Myers Squibb, which marketed it for $1,600 per patient per year. Under pressure […]

In a March 2006 paper in Health Affairs [2-week free access], Mark Pauly and colleagues describe some of the thinking behind the World Bank’s interest in experimental programs to foster the growth of private insurance in developing countries. The authors’ focus is on countries where per capita income is low, government resources are limited, taxation […]

Currently, the United States is short an estimated 150,000 nurses. Yet over the next decade, more than 650,000 new jobs in nursing will be created. At the same time, an estimated 450,000 nurses will have retired. By 2020, the nurse shortage is expected to increase to 800,000. I set out to debunk a number of […]