{"title":"Global Health Indicators and Child Mortality Trends: Insights from a Global Panel Data Analysis of 200 Countries.","authors":"Myung-Bae Park, Young-Joo Won","doi":"10.1177/27551938241284250","DOIUrl":"10.1177/27551938241284250","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The aim of this study was to explore how medical resources and vaccine coverage relate to infant mortality rate (IMR) and under-five mortality rate (U-5MR), which are both key national health indicators. This longitudinal study was based on panel data from the national level of 200 countries. Data from 1990 to 2021 were grouped into seven regions based on geographic and epidemiological similarities. Regarding correlation, the high-income region showed a different trend from that shown by other regions. Health expenditure was positively associated with IMR and U-5MR globally. Number of medical doctors per 1,000 people was negatively associated with IMR and U-5MR globally. Hepatitis type B (HBV) and measles, first dose (MCV) were negatively associated with IMR and HBV, MCV, and Bacillus Calmette-Guérin were negatively associated with U-5MR globally. In quadratic regression, the correlation between the number of doctors and mortality stabilizes or plateaus at approximately four individuals. Overall vaccine coverage was positively correlated with mortality up to a certain threshold, beyond which it became negatively correlated. A higher number of doctors was consistently associated with decreased mortality, regardless of location, while other factors varied by region. Our study findings highlight the importance of implementing global strategies that are specific to each region's characteristics to reduce IMR and U-5MR.</p>","PeriodicalId":73479,"journal":{"name":"International journal of social determinants of health and health services","volume":" ","pages":"92-106"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142333880","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Adam Gaffney, Danny McCormick, Gracie Himmelstein, Steffie Woolhandler, David U Himmelstein
{"title":"Demand and Supply Drivers of Medicare and Non-Medicare Health Spending: An Analysis of U.S. States, 1991-2019.","authors":"Adam Gaffney, Danny McCormick, Gracie Himmelstein, Steffie Woolhandler, David U Himmelstein","doi":"10.1177/27551938241258399","DOIUrl":"10.1177/27551938241258399","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>For the last four decades, policymakers have attempted to control the United States's high health care costs by reducing patients' <i>demand</i> for care (e.g., by imposing managed-care restrictions or high costs on patients at the time of use). Yet studies based mostly on data from the public Medicare program, which covers mostly elderly Americans, suggest that <i>supply</i> (e.g., number of physicians or hospital beds) rather than demand drives aggregate service use and, hence, costs. Using variation between U.S. states in per enrollee Medicare spending versus per capita spending of all other (non-Medicare) individuals, we find that greater supply boosts costs for the entire population. Furthermore, we find that factors that suppress demand in the non-Medicare population do reduce non-Medicare health care spending, but simultaneously increase Medicare spending. This suggests that for a given supply of medical resources, suppressing demand for one group of patients may produce a compensatory increase in provision of care to those whose demand has not been suppressed. Health planning to assure adequate medical resources where they are needed while preventing excess supply where it is duplicative and wasteful is likely a more effective cost control strategy than the imposition of managed-care restrictions or imposing higher costs onto patients seeking care.</p>","PeriodicalId":73479,"journal":{"name":"International journal of social determinants of health and health services","volume":" ","pages":"55-63"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141763036","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Pharmaceutical Industry Payments to Patient Organizations in Poland: Analysis of the Patterns, Evolution, and Structure of Connections.","authors":"Marta Makowska, Shai Mulinari, Piotr Ozieranski","doi":"10.1177/27551938241305995","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/27551938241305995","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Drug company funding can create conflicts of interest that compromise the integrity of patient organizations, a problem studied primarily in Western Europe and North America. To address this research gap, we conducted a case study in Poland, a Central European country. Between 2012 and 2020, 33 companies reported payments worth €13 729 644 to 273 patient organizations in Poland. The funding was highly concentrated, with the top ten recipients amassing 46.2 percent of the total amount. Cancer patient organizations were the primary recipients, receiving 37.5 percent. The funding focused on patient organizations' educational activities, constituting 40.4 percent of the total. For the ten companies reporting payments consistently from 2012 to 2020, we detected an increase in both the value of individual payments and the overall value of the funding. Additionally, some patient organizations formed exclusive, or nearly exclusive, ties with single companies. Overall, our study reveals important similarities between Poland and Western countries in the reported distribution of drug company payments to patient organizations. It also highlights priority areas for further research, including the evolution and structure of the financial connections.</p>","PeriodicalId":73479,"journal":{"name":"International journal of social determinants of health and health services","volume":" ","pages":"27551938241305995"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-12-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142900913","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Welington Serra Lazarini, Francis Sodré, Carlos Eduardo Siqueira
{"title":"Health Policies Within the Poverty Agendas of the Lula Da Silva and Rousseff Administrations: The Influence of the World Bank.","authors":"Welington Serra Lazarini, Francis Sodré, Carlos Eduardo Siqueira","doi":"10.1177/27551938241291715","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/27551938241291715","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The anti-poverty agenda has been at the heart of the World Bank's discourse in recent decades. Social policies started to be identified as strategic for combating poverty and promoting development in poor countries. We analyzed the health policy recommendations made by the World Bank to Brazil in the Lula da Silva and Rousseff administrations from 2003 to 2014. Document analysis was used to explore the partnership contracts between the World Bank and Brazil, projects financed by the World Bank in Brazil, and the document \"20 Years of Construction of the Health System in Brazil: An Analysis of the Unified Health System.\" Content analysis of documents show that there was a predominance of projects focusing on reducing poverty, while social policies occupied a secondary place in the agenda. The World Bank approached states and municipalities expanding the spread of its state reform agenda, in addition to reinterpreting the structural framework of the <i>Sistema Único de Saúde</i> (SUS). We conclude that the Bank acted to limit the original principles of the SUS in favor of hegemonic interests of the current phase of capitalist accumulation.</p>","PeriodicalId":73479,"journal":{"name":"International journal of social determinants of health and health services","volume":" ","pages":"27551938241291715"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-11-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142712034","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Supplementary Private Health Insurance and Household Debt, Health Care Utilization, and Medical Spending Following A Health Shock.","authors":"Sooyeol Park, Kanghee Kim, Kevin Callison","doi":"10.1177/27551938241293382","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/27551938241293382","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This article aims to evaluate the effect of enrolling in supplementary private health insurance on household debt, medical spending, and medical service use among South Koreans experiencing a health shock. Using data from the Korean Welfare Panel Study from 2009 through 2017, we compared household debt and health service use for those with and without private supplemental health insurance after experiencing a health shock. We found no significant differences in household debt or the financial burden of a health shock between those with and without supplemental health insurance coverage following a shock. Households with supplemental coverage used more medical services compared to households without supplementary coverage and incurred additional medical expenses.</p>","PeriodicalId":73479,"journal":{"name":"International journal of social determinants of health and health services","volume":" ","pages":"27551938241293382"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-10-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142549349","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Rebeka Balogh, Deborah De Moortel, Sylvie Gadeyne, Julie Vanderleyden, Chris Warhurst, Christophe Vanroelen
{"title":"Is it the Past or the Present? Employment Quality, Unemployment History, Psychological Distress and Mental Wellbeing in the United Kingdom.","authors":"Rebeka Balogh, Deborah De Moortel, Sylvie Gadeyne, Julie Vanderleyden, Chris Warhurst, Christophe Vanroelen","doi":"10.1177/27551938241288788","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/27551938241288788","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Low employment quality and precarious employment have been associated with adverse mental health outcomes, yet the extent to which this association may be explained by the experience of unemployment \"scarring\" has not yet been explored. From a life course perspective, understanding this possible confounding is necessary. Drawing on the United Kingdom's Understanding Society dataset and using latent class analysis, we derived a typology of employment quality across six dimensions and assessed the links between individuals' employment quality, unemployment history, and mental well-being and psychological distress. Our results show that precarious types of employment as well as a higher quality \"protected part-time\" were linked to low mental well-being, though important gender differences were noted. Accounting for past unemployment did not fully explain these associations. No such adverse associations were observed for increased psychological distress. Our results help further the understanding of employment quality as a social determinant of health and highlight the need for both life course and gender-sensitive research in this area.</p>","PeriodicalId":73479,"journal":{"name":"International journal of social determinants of health and health services","volume":" ","pages":"27551938241288788"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-10-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142482375","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Carin Håkansta, Virginia Gunn, Bertina Kreshpaj, Nuria Matilla-Santander, David H Wegman, Christer Hogstedt, Emilia F Vignola, Carles Muntaner, Theo Bodin, Patricia O'Campo, Wayne Lewchuk
{"title":"What is the Role of Minimum Wages in Addressing Precarious Employment in the Informal and Formal Sectors? Findings from a Systematic Review.","authors":"Carin Håkansta, Virginia Gunn, Bertina Kreshpaj, Nuria Matilla-Santander, David H Wegman, Christer Hogstedt, Emilia F Vignola, Carles Muntaner, Theo Bodin, Patricia O'Campo, Wayne Lewchuk","doi":"10.1177/27551938241286463","DOIUrl":"10.1177/27551938241286463","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This article presents synthesized evidence from 16 studies examining initiatives with potential to mitigate workers' exposure to precarious employment through the adoption of minimum wage policies. All studies were set in low-income countries and focused on both formal and informal workers. A systematic review of evaluated initiatives addressing precarious employment identified the evidence. We consider minimum wage policies as initiatives that could address precarious employment because of the central role of minimum wages in establishing employment terms for workers in precarious situations. We include initiatives aimed at formal and informal workers, given that precarious employment can exist in both sectors, that these workers share concerns regarding income and would benefit from minimum wage policies. The findings imply that minimum wage policies could increase precariously employed workers' financial compensation, although with some differences and with little or no effect on employment security. It is not feasible to extend these conclusions beyond low-income economies due to differences with high-income economies in how the mechanisms through which minimum wage policies could impact worker compensation and employment security. However, they should serve as a reminder for high-income economies, many of which experience expanding informal sectors, about the need for related research and policy.</p>","PeriodicalId":73479,"journal":{"name":"International journal of social determinants of health and health services","volume":" ","pages":"27551938241286463"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-10-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142382640","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Emilia F Vignola, Jia Li, Sharon R Silver, Sherry Baron
{"title":"The Health of Those Who Feed Us: An Assessment of Health Inequities Along the United States Food Chain.","authors":"Emilia F Vignola, Jia Li, Sharon R Silver, Sherry Baron","doi":"10.1177/27551938241285109","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/27551938241285109","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>While the health of all depends on the food chain, few studies have focused systematically on the health of food chain workers themselves (production, manufacturing, wholesale, retail, and commercial and institutional services). In this study we used 2018 and 2019 data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) to examine health-related metrics of food chain workers, combined and by industry sector, compared to non-food chain workers, among 32 U.S. states. Logistic regression indicated U.S. food chain workers had higher prevalences of barriers to health care access, smoking, no physical exercise, and poor self-reported health than all other workers. Patterns were similar among food chain workers in all industry sectors except wholesale. Additionally, commercial food services workers had higher prevalence of poor mental health, while institutional food services workers had higher prevalences of obesity, diabetes, and hypertension than all other workers. We discuss implications of these results for interventions, with specific attention to improving employment conditions. Food chain worker health is critical for food system sustainability and population health equity.</p>","PeriodicalId":73479,"journal":{"name":"International journal of social determinants of health and health services","volume":" ","pages":"27551938241285109"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-10-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142382639","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Accessibility to Health Care Services and Treatment for People with Noncommunicable Diseases in Northwest Syria.","authors":"Kassem Ballout, Nimetcan Mehmet Orhun","doi":"10.1177/27551938241269144","DOIUrl":"10.1177/27551938241269144","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>We assessed the accessibility to health care services and treatment for people with noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) in Northwest Syria after more than eleven years of the worst humanitarian crisis in Syria. Included in this cross-sectional study were people with one or more of cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, cancer, or chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases; people from both Aleppo and Idleb governorates; and residents from both inside and outside the camp. Data were collected in November 2022 via face-to-face interviews. The findings were obtained from 674 respondents (52.8% female). Respondents in Idleb were 6.5 times more likely to access health care services than Aleppo (<i>p </i>= 0000). In-camp residents were 1.5 times more likely to access outreach health services (<i>p </i>= 0.020). Respondents with higher income were three times more likely to access health care services compared to respondents with lower income (<i>p </i>= 0.000). Having any of the surveyed NCDs made the respondents less likely to get the required services. The study findings added more evidence about the inequity in terms of accessing health care services in Northwest Syria and identified the barriers. It was clear that a perceived group of people with NCDs do not have access to the health care services, including outreach health services and free medications.</p>","PeriodicalId":73479,"journal":{"name":"International journal of social determinants of health and health services","volume":" ","pages":"441-453"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141876891","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Social Determinants of Health Under Capitalism's Violent Answer to Climate and Geopolitical Crises.","authors":"Carles Muntaner, Joan Benach","doi":"10.1177/27551938241280377","DOIUrl":"10.1177/27551938241280377","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":73479,"journal":{"name":"International journal of social determinants of health and health services","volume":" ","pages":"329-330"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142156848","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}