Despite its undeniable currency in research and policy circles, there remains considerable confusion about what "population health" is. We propose a lexicon for population health in the hope of clarifying issues and advancing this important research emphasis and policy agenda.

Prenal and early childhood experiences have a more powerfull and longlasting effect on subsequent health, well-being and competence than had been previously thought. The new evidence supporting this claim is rich in implications for policy in Canada.

Birth defects occur in population in 3-5% of births. All those birth defects due to chromosomal errors, hundreds of those due to single genes and many of those due to unknown or multifactoral cause can be detected prenatally. However, it is not feasible to test all pregnancies for all of these...

In this study we examined how gate-keeping arrangements influence referrals to specialty care for children and adolescents in private and Medicaid insurance plans.

This paper discusses how in vitro fertilization provides a good example of the fact that research evidence is only part of a complexly interacting mix in policy development.

The major objectives of this study were to assess the proportion of patients in acute care hospital beds that meet standard criteria requiring acute care services and to document the alternative type or level of care that would be more appropriate for those patients not meeting the criteria.

This study explores how likely patients with newly-diagnosed diabetes in Alberta are to receive specially diabetes care, their route of referral, and the patterns of co-management after referral occurs.

The simple story of Canadian hospital financing --- single-source (tax-based) public funding through provincial Ministries of Health to individual institutions through prospective global budgets -- offers a relatively accurate general picture which, nevertheless, masks both...

Where are peace and tranquility be founded? Public expressions of dissatisfaction with health care systems are growing throught the developed world: everywhere there is unhappiness.

In order to develop standardized measures to access patients's relative priority for services for which there are waiting lists, it is essential that key terms be clearly defined. We propose that severity be defined as the degree or extent of suffering, limits to activities or risk of death,...