This study examines the role of proximity to death (PTD) in need-based approaches to health care by: (1) investigating whether PTD is a statistically significant, independent predictor of health-care use; and (2) estimating PTD's marginal impact on need-based allocation of health-care resources.

Self-rated health is a widely used measure of health typically obtained from a question, “How do you rate your health?” Despite the measure’s popularity, debates continue as to what exactly self-rated health captures. This study augments the rich literature on the construct of self-rated...

In this paper we critically appraise the appropriateness and validity from an economic perspective of alternative preference-based approaches to measuring outcomes in economic evaluations of health care interventions. We describe the properties of an outcome measure for economic evaluation to...

Objectives The scaling up of antiretroviral treatment (ART) for HIV-infected adults requires a sizeable investment of resources in the South African public health care system. It is important that these resources are used productively and in ways that reach those in need, irrespective of social...

Systematic variations in health and illness among social groups have persisted and, in some cases increased, in many countries in spite of improvements in the availability of, and access to, health care services. Health policy makers have responded by showing increasing interest in non-clinical...

While there is a large and growing literature investigating the relationship between an individual's employment status and health, considerably less is known about the effect on this relationship of the context in which unemployment occurs. The aim of this paper is test for the presence and...