Gasto y financiamiento en salud: situacion y tendencias / Health spending and financing: the current situation and trends

Being knowledgeable about national health expenditures and sources of financing is essential for decision-making. This awareness also makes it possible to evaluate the equity of allocation and the efficiency of utilization of these resources. Changes in the financing have been a substantial component of health sector reform in the Americas. The goal has shifted from merely one of financial sustainability to simultaneously seeking equitable access to quality services. In this article the PAn American Health Organization (PAHO) presents a proposal for analyzing and designing a policy on health financing. The aim of the policy is to identify the mix of financing mechanisms most likely to simultaneously produce financial sustainability, equity, access, and efficiency. The PAHO proposal combines traditional mechanisms for generating resources (public funds from taxes, as well as private health insurance, national health insurance, and user fees) with complementary subsidy mechanisms for vulnerable groups. Health financing strategies ought to explicitly consider the financing both of care for individuals and of health interventions for the general public good, for which public financing is the most equitable and efficient approach (AU)

An overview of health-related industrial biotechnology in Latin American and the Caribbean

There is some uncertainty about the extent to which Latin America and the Caribbean have participated in the advances of health-related industrial biotechnology. This article reviews the available literature and seeks to provide an overview of the prevailing situation. In general, national governments and multinational agencies have provided most of the health-related biotechnology investments within this region. Efforts to achieve technology transfers, a subject of prime concern, have been developed by a number of programs including the WHO Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases, the UNDP/UNESCO/UNIDO Regional Biotechnology Program for Latin America and the Caribbean; PAHO's Program for the Regional Development of Biotechnology as Applied to Health; the PAHO/WHO Expanded Program of Immunization (EPI); and PAHO's Regional System of Vaccines (SIREVA). Regarding current production capacity, some successful efforts have been made to produce a variety of therapeutic products including recombinant and natural ionterferons, interleukins, insulin, and recombinant streptokinase; but in general the region's current potential in this area is at best incipient and uncertain. However, the region does have a limited ability to make diagnostic products and a well-established capacity for vaccine development. Overall, this picture suggests that the region has the potential to play a small but significant role in health-related biotechnology (AU).

Economic adjustments and health care financing in the Caribbean

Investigates the effects of economic and social changes on state health care financing in 10 caricom countries; St. Vincent and Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago, St. Lucia, St. Kitts and Nevis, Dominica, Antigua and Barbuda, Montserrat, Barbados, The Bahamas and Belize. Provides statistical and graphic data on each country for the period 1980-1988 such as recurrent health expenditure, capital health expenditure and total health expenditure as percentages of GDP (AU)

The role of social security in the provision of medical care in the English-speaking Caribbean

This paper reviews the current role of social security institutions in financing health care and explores possible alternative avenues for their participation