Shortages of GPs in rural areas constitute a profound health policy issue worldwide. The evidence for the effectiveness of various incentives schemes, which can be specifically implemented to boost recruitment to rural general practice, is generally considered to be poor. This paper investigates...

This paper discusses the moral relevance of accounting for various personal characteristics when prioritising between groups of patients. After a review of the results from empirical studies, we discuss the ethical reasons which might explain – and justify – the views expressed in these...

This paper analyses the extents to which variations in revenues and memberships of health charities – or patient organisations – might be explained by characteristics of the diseases that the organisations represent. After a theoretical discussion it inquires into 45 Norwegian patient...

Background:Background: Several countries have now passed laws that place limitations on where smokers may smoke. A range of smoking-cessation treatments have become available, many of which have documented increased quit rates. Population surveys show that most smokers wish to quit, and most...

The standard practice in cost-effectiveness analyses of health care is to assign a linear value to increasing lifetime gains. The aim of the current study was to examine the possible existence of non-linear utility for short life extensions. A representative sample of the Norwegian population,...