Noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) have become the major cause of disease burden in the Philippines. In 2019, NCDs accounted for about 70 percent of the 600,000 deaths nationwide; this is projected to increase in the medium to long term. The premature deaths due to NCDs are increasing in a much...

The Philippine national government, through the Department of Health (DOH), has a long tradition of augmenting the supply of healthcare workers in underserved areas. Even with the adoption of the Local Government Code in 1991, which shifts the mandate of DOH from being the sole provider of...

The novel Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a global pandemic that has infected at least 1.2 million people and caused more than 67,000 deaths worldwide. The Philippines has recorded 3,764 confirmed cases and 177 deaths as of April 7, 2020 and has implemented an enhanced Luzon-wide enhanced...

Health human resource (HHR) is critical in the delivery of health care services. However, the available evidences on their geographic distribution and availability remains quite limited in the scope of cadres studied, i.e., mostly physicians, and in global reach, i.e., mainly in English-speaking...

More than 25 years into the implementation of the Local Government Code of 1991, it is inconclusive whether fiscal decentralization indeed improves health service delivery in the Philippines. There is lack of studies that employ rigorous quantitative approach to address the research issue at...

The study analyzes the efficiency implications of fiscal decentralization using stochastic frontier analysis (SFA). It uses LGU health expenditure (in per capita real terms) as input. The output variables of interest include access to safe water and sanitation, health facility-based delivery,...

In the Philippines, decisionmakers mostly rely on access indicators in measuring health system performance. However, as the country embarks on path-breaking Universal Health Coverage (UHC) reforms, assessing healthcare quality is more important than ever. In this study, we examined the...

Health care providers such as hospitals and primary health care facilities form an integral part of any health system. Providers must have both financial sustainability, such that they are able to continuously deliver health care services without bankruptcy, and sufficient profits to maintain...

The Philippines entered its deepest recession in post-war history in 2020, with output declining by 9.6 percent. Coming up with a strategy on how to best manage the economy and deal with the fallout of the public health shock, especially on the weaker segments of society, became the biggest...

Widespread chronic malnutrition in the Philippines is a human development disaster, which needs critical and urgent attention. Its consequences are multifaceted and extreme. Hence, it should be at the front and center of economic and health dialogue. This paper provides the current state of...