Archive for the ‘News’ Category

A special issue of the Health Policy & Planning journal published findings from the recently completed Social Health Insurance for Equity in Less Developed countries (SHIELD) project conducted in Ghana, South Africa and Tanzania. The research is freely available; see: http://heapol.oxfordjournals.org/content/27/suppl_1

The research presented in this paper was undertaken collaboratively by the HEU, University of Rhodes and the University of Aberdeen. It is part of a broader programme of work on eliciting public preferences undertaken in collaboration with the Black Sash and Health-e News Service. (Download brief).

The use of ‘co-payments’ to deal with possible ‘over-utilisation’ of health care services is a key point of contention in policy debates related to South Africa’s National Health Insurance proposals. Over-utilisation occurs when health care provision (in instances when it is free at the point of service), leads to inappropriate and excessive utilisation.  Co-payments mean [...]

CLEARY, S., BIRCH, S., MOSHABELA, M. & SCHNEIDER, H. (2012) Unequal access to ART: exploratory results from rural and urban case studies of ART use. Sexually Transmitted Infections, 88, 141-146 Abstract Introduction: South Africa has the world’s largest antiretroviral treatment (ART) programme. While services in the public sector are free at the point of use, [...]

GILSON, L. ED (2012) Health Policy and Systems Research: A Methodology Reader, Geneva, World Health Organisation. Content outline sourced from the Reader: Part 1 provides an overview of the field of HPSR in LMICs and some of the key challenges of this kind of research. Part 2 outlines key steps to follow when conducting HPSR [...]

One of our MPH students got published in a local newspaper in Malawi. Martin Kanjadza is completing the Masters in Public Health (specialising in Health Economics) programme – his article was titled On Malawi’s health financing system. 

A new consortium has recently launched their website that will document all their work. The Resilient and Responsive Health Systems (RESYST) is a Consortium that is undertaking health policy and systems research (with a focus on financing, health workers and governance) in a set of African and Asian settings, including India, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, [...]

HEU Honorary professor Stephen Birch has been ranked among the most influential health economists in the world in a report prepared for the World Bank. Read full article: http://fhs.mcmaster.ca/main/news/news_2011/health_economists.html Find out more about Prof Birch: http://heu-uct.org.za/about-heu/staff/professor-stephen-birch/

The Department of Health held a conference at the end of last year in the Midrand to further consult with the public about policy proposals for the National Health Insurance implementation. Health Economics Unit Professor Di McIntyre’s presentation looked at financing options for South Africa. The conference aimed to elicit policy inputs from as many [...]

This paper explores factors that predict deprivation and are associated with multiple counts of deprivation in Nsukka, Nigeria. Different conceptions of poverty were constructed: the traditional money-metric measure and differing multidimensional constructs of poverty. Data from a survey of households in Nsukka were used. The counting and FGT methodologies were used to measure poverty and [...]