Individuals should be entitled to a "fair innings", and the primary role of health systems should be the prevention of premature mortality. In India, 66 percent of all deaths are premature. The burden of premature mortality has shifted from child (0-5 years) to adult (30-69 years) level over the...

Trust in the health care system requires being confident that sufficient and appropriate treatments will be provided if needed. The COVID-19 public health crisis is a significant, global, and (mostly) simultaneous test of the behavioral implications arising from this trust. We explore whether...

We examine the efficiency gains in health systems generated after the national roll out of basic healthcare in El Salvador between 2010 and 2013. Using data from over 120 million consultations and five million hospitalizations, we demonstrate that the expansion of community health teams,...

This paper examines the relationship between public financial management (PFM), the financing of health interventions, and health outcomes. Specifically, the paper econometrically tests whether the effect of PFM on under-five (U5) mortality depends on the relevance of public sector health...

Health economists have studied the determinants of the expected value of health status as a function of medical and nonmedical inputs, often finding small marginal effects of the former. This paper argues that both types of input have an additional benefit, viz. a reduced variability of health...

In this paper, we address the issue of spurious correlation in the production of health in a systematic way. Spurious correlation entails the risk of linking health status to medical (and nonmedical) inputs when no links exist. This note first presents the bounds testing procedure as a method to...

There have been many studies of the volume-outcome relationship. In all of these, the unit of analysis is the hospital or physician. However, this level of analysis is mostly limited to the use of in-hospital mortality rates and is particularly sensitive to selective referral. Moreover, the...

This paper describes the status, challenges and scope for strengthening surveillance of chronic disease risk factors, morbidities and mortality in India. We draw upon the surveillance experience of four selected States of India namely Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Kerala and Tamil Nadu to understand...

In 2015, an estimated 429,000 deaths and 212 million cases of malaria occurred worldwide, while 70% of the deaths occurred in children under five years old. Changes in climatic exposure such as temperature and precipitation makes malaria one of the most climate sensitive outcomes. Using a global...