Background: Reducing rates of healthcare acquired infection has been identified by the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care as a national priority. One of the goals is the prevention of central venous catheter-related bloodstream infection (CR-BSI). At least 3,500 cases of...

Maternal and infant mortality is a global health issue with a significant social and economic impact. Each year, over half a million women worldwide die due to complications related to pregnancy or childbirth, four million infants die in the first 28 days of life, and eight million infants die...

Standard Data Envelope Analysis models result in a large fraction of the observations becoming 100 percent efficient. The article measures the technical efficiency of 25 district referral hospitals from three regions of Uganda over the 1999-2003 period. It applies a super-efficiency Data...

This dissertation consists of three essays on health economics. Lack of incentive to protect asset has been one of the theoretical explanations for the limited private long-term care insurance market. State long-term care insurance partnership program allows policy holders to protect a certain...

Objectives: To quantify randomness and cost when choosing health and medical research projects for funding. Design: Analysis of retrospective data from grant review panels. Setting: The National Health & Medical Research Council of Australia. Participants/Data: All panel members’ scores for...

The positive relationship between household income and child health is well documented in the child health literature but the precise mechanisms via which income generates better health and whether the income gradient is increasing in child age are not well understood. This paper presents new...

A time series analysis was performed on medical scheme statistics with the aim of determining current and future demographic and economic trends. This would enable one to reach a better perspective on the current and future financial dilemma presently experienced by medical schemes. Data for the...

The extent to which economic evaluations of public health programs in Ontario are conducted and used by decision makers is currently very limited. This thesis supports public health decision-making through applied and methodological work. The applied work demonstrates different methods to...

The overall objective of this thesis is to contribute to the existing knowledge of efficiency measurements through the exploration of efficiency modelling issues and practical applications of different efficiency analysis frameworks. More specifically, this objective will be achieved through a...