The Philippine Expanded Program on Immunization (EPI) has been in existence for almost 40 years. It is one of the major programs of the Department of Health (DOH) that aims to provide Filipino children with access to safe and effective vaccines against diseases like measles, diphtheria, tetanus,...

The economic and health recovery of countries in the Asia-Pacific region from the pandemic is hinged on the rapid and equitable deployment of safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines. However, in the initial years of the COVID-19 vaccine roll-out, highly unequal distribution of vaccines occurred...

Given the persistently high under -5 stunting prevalence in the Philippines, it is important to look at how the country has invested in nutrition interventions to inform priorities for future resource mobilization. Measuring and tracking of nutrition financing are not only critical for...

The universal health care (UHC) law mandates that all Filipinos should have access to essential primary care services with a focus on preventive healthcare. As plans are being made by the government to map out a comprehensive outpatient benefit package covering primary care, it would be a worthy...

The COVID-19 pandemic, and lockdown measures taken to control its spread, brought economies to a halt, turning the public health crisis into an economic one. Though government responses, such as labor and social welfare protection programs, were similar for recent economic crises like the Global...

About a third of Filipino children are stunted or chronically malnourished. However, there is a paucity of evidence on the socioeconomic inequalities of stunting in the Philippines. This study has two objectives. First, we discuss the wide range of determinants that explain the large...

To examine whether current strategies and investment are directed towards cost-effective interventions, we reviewed public expenditures on nutrition (Annual Investment Plans [AIPs] and Gender and Development [GAD)] budgets) and evaluated implementation of the Philippine Plan of Action for...

Socioeconomic disparities run deep in the Philippines, but the COVID-19 pandemic further exacerbated these inequities. Globally, there is a renewed sense of urgency to break these inequities and place social justice at the front and center of the post-COVID recovery. Social justice is about...

We conducted a spatiotemporal analysis of trends and disparities in health service coverage indicators using PhilHealth data on insurance claims, membership, and accredited facilities merged with auxiliary datasets from the Department of Health and Philippine Statistics Authority. The results...

Background: We constructed a composite index, which measures the enabling factors of illicit tobacco trade for 160 countries.Data and Methods: We collected the most recent and best available data for various variables on general governance, tobacco control policies, trade and customs practices....