Impact of Political Economy on Population Health: A Systematic Review of Reviews.

Background. Although there is a large literature examining the relationship between a wide range of political economy exposures and health outcomes, the extent to which the different aspects of political economy influence health, and through which mechanisms and in what contexts, is only partially understood. The areas in which there are few high-quality studies are also unclear. Objectives. To systematically review the literature describing the impact of political economy on population health. Search Methods. We undertook a systematic review of reviews, searching MEDLINE, Embase, International Bibliography of the Social Sciences, ProQuest Public Health, Sociological Abstracts, Applied Social Sciences Index and Abstracts, EconLit, SocINDEX, Web of Science, and the gray literature via Google Scholar. Selection Criteria. We included studies that were a review of the literature. Relevant exposures were differences or changes in policy, law, or rules; economic conditions; institutions or social structures; or politics, power, or conflict. Relevant outcomes were any overall measure of population health such as self-assessed health, mortality, life expectancy, survival, morbidity, well-being, illness, ill health, and life span. Two authors independently reviewed all citations for relevance. Data Collection and Analysis. We undertook critical appraisal of all included reviews by using modified Assessing the Methodological Quality of Systematic Reviews (AMSTAR) criteria and then synthesized narratively giving greater weight to the higher-quality reviews. Main Results. From 4912 citations, we included 58 reviews. Both the quality of the reviews and the underlying studies within the reviews were variable. Social democratic welfare states, higher public spending, fair trade policies, extensions to compulsory education provision, microfinance initiatives in low-income countries, health and safety policy, improved access to health care, and high-quality affordable housing have positive impacts on population health. Neoliberal restructuring seems to be associated with increased health inequalities and higher income inequality with lower self-rated health and higher mortality. Authors' Conclusions. Politics, economics, and public policy are important determinants of population health. Countries with social democratic regimes, higher public spending, and lower income inequalities have populations with better health. There are substantial gaps in the synthesized evidence on the relationship between political economy and health, and there is a need for higher-quality reviews and empirical studies in this area. However, there is sufficient evidence in this review, if applied through policy and practice, to have marked beneficial health impacts. Public Health Implications. Policymakers should be aware that social democratic welfare state types, countries that spend more on public services, and countries with lower income inequalities have better self-rated health and lower mortality. Research funders and researchers should be aware that there remain substantial gaps in the available evidence base. One such area concerns the interrelationship between governance, polities, power, macroeconomic policy, public policy, and population health, including how these aspects of political economy generate social class processes and forms of discrimination that have a differential impact across social groups. This includes the influence of patterns of ownership (of land and capital) and tax policies. For some areas, there are many lower-quality reviews, which leave uncertainties in the relationship between political economy and population health, and a high-quality review is needed. There are also areas in which the available reviews have identified primary research gaps such as the impact of changes to housing policy, availability, and tenure.

State Medicaid fees and access to primary care physicians.

Medicaid and uninsured patients are disadvantaged in access to care and are disproportionately Black and Hispanic. Using a national audit of primary care physicians, we examine the relationship between state Medicaid fees for primary care services and access for Medicaid, Medicare, uninsured, and privately insured patients who differ by race/ethnicity and sex. We found that states with higher Medicaid fees had higher probabilities of appointment offers and shorter wait times for Medicaid patients, and lower probabilities of appointment offers and longer wait times for uninsured patients. Appointment offers and wait times for Medicare and privately insured patients were unaffected by Medicaid fees. At mean state Medicaid fees, our analysis predicts a 27-percentage-point disadvantage for Medicaid versus Medicare in appointment offers. This decreases to 6 percentage points when Medicaid and Medicare fees are equal, suggesting that permanent fee parity with Medicare could eliminate most of the disparity in appointment offers for Medicaid patients. The predicted decrease in the disparity is smaller for Black and Hispanic patients than for White patients. Our research highlights the importance of considering the effects of policy on nontarget patient groups, and the consequences of seemingly race-neutral policies on racial/ethnic and sex-based disparities.

Primary or specialist medical care: Which is more equitable? A policy brief.

BACKGROUND: Equity in health and equitable access to healthcare has been at the core of health policy in India. The key policy challenge has been how to make that possible? Various health insurance schemes such as the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana and Arogyasri seek to improve poor people's access to specialist medical care in the public and private sectors. On the other hand, access to primary medical care has been left to the supply side interventions. METHODS: We did a focused review of evidence on equity aspects of primary medical care versus specialist medical care. We selected relevant publications from the Cochrane Library, PubMed and Google Scholar searches and articles snowballing out of them. RESULTS: Higher primary care physician-to-population ratio is invariably associated with better health outcomes. Primary care may partly protect the poor from adverse effects of income inequality on health status. On the other hand, populations do not necessarily benefit from an overabundance of specialists in a geographical area. CONCLUSIONS: Three key policy lessons emerge from this review. First, states should strengthen primary medical care by upgrading health centres. Second, a family health protection plan should be introduced as a demand side intervention to deliver primary care through health centres, non-profit and for-profit clinics. Third, postgraduate courses in family medicine should be introduced for a balanced development of the specialty of primary care pari passu other specialties.

Achieving universal health coverage in South Africa through a district health system approach: conflicting ideologies of health care provision.

BACKGROUND: Universal Health Coverage (UHC) has emerged as a major goal for health care delivery in the post-2015 development agenda. It is viewed as a solution to health care needs in low and middle countries with growing enthusiasm at both national and global levels. Throughout the world, however, the paths of countries to UHC have differed. South Africa is currently reforming its health system with UHC through developing a national health insurance (NHI) program. This will be practically achieved through a decentralized approach, the district health system, the main vehicle for delivering services since democracy. METHODS: We utilize a review of relevant documents, conducted between September 2014 and December 2015 of district health systems (DHS) and UHC and their ideological underpinnings, to explore the opportunities and challenges, of the district health system in achieving UHC in South Africa. RESULTS: Review of data from the NHI pilot districts suggests that as South Africa embarks on reforms toward UHC, there is a need for a minimal universal coverage and emphasis on district particularity and positive discrimination so as to bridge health inequities. The disparities across districts in relation to health profiles/demographics, health delivery performance, management of health institutions or district management capacity, income levels/socio-economic status and social determinants of health, compliance with quality standards and above all the burden of disease can only be minimised through positive discrimination by paying more attention to underserved and disadavantaged communities. CONCLUSIONS: We conclude that in South Africa the DHS is pivotal to health reform and UHC may be best achieved through minimal universal coverage with positive discrimination to ensure disparities across districts in relation to disease burden, human resources, financing and investment, administration and management capacity, service readiness and availability and the health access inequalities are consciously implicated. Yet ideological and practical issues make its achievement problematic.

China's human resources for health: quantity, quality, and distribution.

In this paper, we analyse China's current health workforce in terms of quantity, quality, and distribution. Unlike most countries, China has more doctors than nurses-in 2005, there were 1.9 million licensed doctors and 1.4 million nurses. Doctor density in urban areas was more than twice that in rural areas, with nurse density showing more than a three-fold difference. Most of China's doctors (67.2%) and nurses (97.5%) have been educated up to only junior college or secondary school level. Since 1998 there has been a massive expansion of medical education, with an excess in the production of health workers over absorption into the health workforce. Inter-county inequality in the distribution of both doctors and nurses is very high, with most of this inequality accounted for by within-province inequalities (82% or more) rather than by between-province inequalities. Urban-rural disparities in doctor and nurse density account for about a third of overall inter-county inequality. These inequalities matter greatly with respect to health outcomes across counties, provinces, and strata in China; for instance, a cross-county multiple regression analysis using data from the 2000 census shows that the density of health workers is highly significant in explaining infant mortality.

Statement of the Problem: Health Reform, Value-Based Purchasing, Alternative Payment Strategies, and Children and Youth With Special Health Care Needs.

There is increasing interest in maximizing health care purchasing value by emphasizing strategies that promote cost-effectiveness while achieving optimal health outcomes. These value-based purchasing (VBP) strategies have largely focused on adult health, and little is known about the impact of VBP program development and implementation on children, especially children and youth with special health care needs (CYSHCN). With the increasing emphasis on VBP, policymakers must critically analyze the potential impact of VBP for CYSCHN, because this group of children, by definition, uses more health care services than other children and inevitably incurs higher per person costs. We provide a history and definition of VBP and insurance design, noting its origin in employer-sponsored health insurance, and discuss various financing and payment strategies that may be pursued under a VBP framework. The relevance of these approaches for CYSHCN is discussed, and recommendations for next steps are provided. There is considerable work to be done if VBP strategies are to be applied to CYSHCN. Issues include the low prevalence of specific special health care need conditions, how to factor in a life course perspective, in which investments in children's health pay off over a long period of time, the marginal savings that may or may not accrue, the increased risk of family financial hardship, and the potential to exacerbate existing inequities across race, class, ethnicity, functional status, and other social determinants of health.

Exploring the barriers to implementing National Health Insurance in South Africa: The people's perspective.

This article explores the challenges of implementing the proposed National Health Insurance for South Africa (SA), based on the six building blocks of the World Health Organization Health System Framework. In the context of the current SA health system, leadership, finance, workforce, technologies, information and service delivery are explored from the perspective of the people at ground level. Through considerations such as these, the universal health coverage goals of health equity, efficiency, responsiveness and financial risk protection, might be realised.