Private practice in the health sector was re-introduced from 1980, when China began its economic reform from a planned economy to a market economy. But today the total number of private sector providers is quite few, because the government does not encourage the growth of private sector...

National Health Accounts (NHA) is a tried and tested tool for summarizing, describing, and analyzing the financing of national health systems. The estimates prepared provide clues regarding the essential steps to be taken for better use of health financing to improve health system performance. A...

This paper investigates the effects of safe drinking water and sanitation on diarrhoeal diseases among children in rural Orissa. [Working Paer No. 278]

India’s health policy has focused on primary health centers and hospitals. The numbers of hospital beds, doctors, and nurses per 1000 persons have often been treated less as inputs and more as measures of success of the health policy. Health outcomes such as a reduction in cases of...

Creating and developing fair and evidence-based national and global systems to more rationally set priorities for public spending on health. An interim secretariat should be there to incubate a global health technology assessment facility designed to help governments develop national systems and...

This paper examines the multi-dimensional nature of urban poverty with special emphasis on ill-health led deprivation. As a driver of poverty, ill-health reduces the income earning potential and increases expenditure on medication, thereby causing asset depletion, increasing debt and worsening...

If the Union Budget 2014 is anything to go by , the fiscal policy of the new government shows no change. In fact, there is an amazing continuity with the previous few Budgets. Significantly however, there are signs that the Union government appears to be abdicating its responsibility towards the...

In under-resourced settings, where sanitation and safe water are often lacking, breastfeeding can be life-saving. Breastfeeding protects against infectious diseases, especially gastrointestinal infections, which largely contribute to child morbidity and mortality in developing countries (1)....

The research on breastfeeding and breast cancer risk, it is clear that this has been a difficult area to study. If breastfeeding does lower risk, the level of protection is small and depends on women breastfeeding for a long time. In countries such as the U.S., most women who breastfeed their...

Review of The Social and the Symbolic edited by Edited by Bernard Bel, Jan Brouwer, Biswajit Das, Vibodh Parthasarathi, Guy Poitevin; Sage, New Delhi; 2007, pp 481, Rs 895.