Parental Compensatory Behaviors and Early Child Health Outcomes in Cebu, Philippines()

A dynamic optimization model of parents choosing investments in their children's health motivates an empirical model of parents' choices of health inputs for their children and the impacts of these decisions on their children's subsequent health. Estimates of the child health input demand functions and the child health production functions from the Cebu Longitudinal Health and Nutrition Survey accord with the prediction that optimizing behavior results in higher levels of aggregate child health. Observable parental behaviors respond to the physical developmental status of their children. These parental responses appear to yield large and statistically significant improvements in children's early physiological outcomes. However, because some health inputs choices are not observable, it is impossible to ascertain whether these measured effects are due solely to variations in the observed input choices.     

Parental compensatory behaviors and early child health outcomes in Cebu,Philippines

A dynamic optimization model of parents choosing investments in their children's health motivates an empirical model of parents' choices of health inputs for their children and the impacts of these decisions on their children's subsequent health. Estimates of the child health input demand functions and the child health production functions from the Cebu Longitudinal Health and Nutrition Survey accord with the prediction that optimizing behavior results in higher levels of aggregate child health. Observable parental behaviors respond to the physical developmental status of their children. These parental responses appear to yield large and statistically significant improvements in children's early physiological outcomes. However, because some health inputs choices are not observable, it is impossible to ascertain whether these measured effects are due solely to variations in the observed input choices.     

Taxing Sin Goods and Subsidizing Health Care*

We study the taxation of sin goods in a two‐period, three‐good model. Individuals can buy health care to compensate for the damages caused by their earlier sin‐good consumption. Individuals are myopic and underestimate the effect of the sinful consumption on health; in their second period, they may acknowledge their mistake or persist in their error. We characterize and compare the first‐best and the (linear) second‐best taxes in these different settings. In particular, we examine how the results are affected by the way sin‐good consumption and health care interact in health production technology.     

Women's Intrahousehold Decision-Making Power and Their Health Status: Evidence from Rural Ethiopia

ABSTRACT

This study examines how various determinants of women's decision-making power affect their health status in rural Ethiopia. It identifies the determinants of women's decision-making power using a qualitative survey conducted over 2008–9, and it investigates their effects on women's health status using the Ethiopian Rural Household Survey panel dataset for the period 1994–2004. The study finds that women's health status is positively associated with their education, the number of brothers they have, whether they live in their birthplace, and whether their age is close to that of their husband. In contrast, women's health is negatively associated with whether they are in a marriage of their choice compared to an arranged marriage. The study concludes that multiple factors originating from context-specific gender norms affect women's decision-making power and have differential effects on women's health outcomes.     

中国农村中老年女性人口生殖健康状况与服务需求分析

基于对全国7省农村中老年女性人口的抽样调查,描述和分析了她们的生殖健康状况和服务需求。普遍的突出问题是:年轻生育时期缺少高质量围产期保健服务,缺乏对更年期的正确认识,生殖健康促进的意识很薄弱,有半数以上的人出现更年期综合症,受各种妇科疾病困扰非常痛苦,难以启齿的性问题也困扰着她们,约有四分之一已绝经的中老年妇女没有将避孕环适时取出,严重影响了她们的生殖健康。提出了农村中老年妇女更年期生殖健康服务的基本构思和运行框架。     

Engaging patients and families in ehealth

National Health IT Week, which ran from September 11-16, 2011, served as a time to highlight the importance of efficient information systems that protect the privacy and security of personal health information while improving the delivery of health care in the United States. During the week, the health IT community came together to raise national awareness regarding the consistent breakthroughs and hard work industry professionals, providers, and consumers have put forward to ensure they are moving toward the common goal of advancing the future of health care through private and secure health IT. Two events during the week (the Consumer Health IT Summit and the launch of the HealthlT.gov web site) brought home a theme increasingly seen as important to improving our health care system--patients participation in their care. Nurses will need to work with patients so they understand the importance of their participation as a partner in their care, instead of playing a passive role. One way we can do that is to encourage our patients to actively use technology to manage their own health care and to share information with their health care providers.     

The impact of the correlation between health expenditure and survival probability on the demand for insurance

This paper studies the effects of health shocks on the demand for health insurance and annuities, along with precautionary saving in a dynamic life-cycle model. I argue that when the health shock can simultaneously increase health expenses and reduce longevity, rational agents would neither fully insure their uncertain health expenses nor fully annuitize their wealth because the correlation between health expenses and longevity provides a self-insurance channel for both uncertainties. That is, when the agent is hit by a health shock (which simultaneously increases health expenses and reduces longevity), she can use the resources originally saved for consumption in the reduced period of life to pay for the increased health expenses. Since the two uncertainties partially offset each other, the precautionary saving generated in the model should be smaller than in a standard model without the correlation between health expenses and longevity. In a quantitative life-cycle model calibrated using the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey dataset, I find that the health expenses are highly correlated with the survival probabilities, and this correlation significantly reduces the demand for actuarially fair health insurance, while its impact on the demand for annuities and precautionary saving is relatively small.     

Health, Wealth, and Fairness

How much health should we have and how should it be distributed? This paper studies how to define social objectives for the allocation of health and income in a setting where individuals may differ in their preferences about health and consumption, earning ability, and health disposition. It is shown, on the basis of three simple ethical principles, that a reasonable social objective is to apply the maximin criterion to “full‐health equivalent” incomes. An application to the choice of the optimal health policy illustrates how this social objective may be used.     

Mortality,Human Capital and Persistent Inequality

Available evidence suggests high intergenerational correlation of economic status and persistent disparities in health status between the rich and the poor. This paper proposes a mechanism linking the two. We introduce health capital into a two-period overlapping generations model. Private health investment improves the probability of surviving from the first period of life to the next and, along with education, enhances an individual’s labor productivity. Poorer parents are of poor health, unable to invest much in reducing mortality risk and improving their human capital. Consequently, they leave less for their progeny. Despite convex preferences and technologies, initial differences in economic and health status may perpetuate across generations when annuities markets are imperfect.Additional support was provided by the National Science Foundation. Additional support was provided by the National Science Foundation.     

Hospitality and service: leading real change

A patient's decision to recommend a health care organization and the patient's loyalty scores are largely determined by the interaction patients and their families have with the nurses. Hospitality is how the delivery of that product makes the person feel and is a dialogue that requires the server to be "on the guest's side" throughout the experience. The challenge for health care is to help our patients and their families transcend the usual routine care of our health care world and to experience an emotional connection that provides that sense of affiliation and emotional kinship with the organization and the staff. Moving from the service mindset in health care to the hospitality mindset that engages people positively and emotionally is what healing is all about.     

Governing for improved quality and patient safety

Board members have a critical oversight role to play in monitoring and providing direction to improve health care quality and safety. In the emerging environment of health care reform, the board's role in overseeing quality and safety on behalf of stakeholders will become as or even more important than its financial oversight role. Nurses can expand their impact by joining the ranks of health care organization governing boards to lead and guide the entire health care enterprise to realize the goal of improved care and outcomes for all patients.     

Public–private mix of health expenditure: A political economy and quantitative analysis

This paper constructs a simple model to examine decisions on public and private health spending under majority voting. In the model, agents with heterogeneous incomes choose how much to consume and spend on health care and vote for public health expenditure. The health status of an agent is determined by a CES composite of public and private health expenditure. The existence and uniqueness of the voting equilibrium are established. A quantitative exercise reveals the importance of the relative effectiveness of public and private health expenditure and their substitutability in determining the public‐private mix of health expenditure and in accounting for the observed differences across a sample of 22 advanced democratic countries.     

Investigating household choice for health and life insurance

The objective of this article is to investigate the joint determination of household choice for health and life insurance. Using the 2008–2009 Consumer Expenditure Survey data, we model household choice for health and life insurance assuming households consider purchasing them to manage financial risks in their life, after accounting for household characteristics, insurance characteristics, health status, and disability status. The model allows assessing the impact of health insurance choice on the choice of life insurance and the correlation between these two choices. The result suggests that health insurance choice positively affects the choice of life insurance and these two choices are positively correlated indicating complementary nature of these insurances in the basket of households’ risk minimising goods.     

Reproductive health,fairness, and optimal policies

We consider an overlapping generations economy in which agents differ through their ability to procreate. Ex‐ante infertile households may incur health expenditure to increase their chances of parenthood. This health heterogeneity generates welfare inequalities that deserve to be ruled out. We explore three different criteria of social evaluation in the long‐run: the utilitarian approach, the ex‐ante egalitarian criterion and the ex‐post egalitarian one. We propose a set of economic instruments to decentralize each solution. To correct for the externalities and health inequalities, both a preventive (a taxation of capital) and a redistributive policy are required. We show that a more egalitarian allocation is associated with higher productive investment but reduced health expenditure and thus, lower population growth.     

Widowhood and health of elderly in India: examining the role of economic factors using structural equation modeling

Evidence on the association between widowhood and health is widely available in the literature. However, there is a dearth of analysis on the mechanism through which widowhood affects the health status of an individual, particularly in old age, specifically whether widowhood among the elderly affects their health through their economic conditions. This paper purports to establish both the direct and indirect effects of widowhood on self-reported health status among aged Indians. We examine the mediating effect of economic factors such as income, labor force participation, extent of economic independence and other economic factors in the relationship between widowhood and health status. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) is employed to test specific hypotheses. We use unit level 60th round data for the year 2004 surveyed by the National Sample Survey Organization (NSSO). The results confirm that poor economic conditions have a mediating effect on the relationship between widowhood and health and, therefore, any policy to reduce the effect of widowhood on health must be based on economic factors.     

老年人心理健康影响因素的调查研究--从人格特征与应对方式二因素分析

人格特征和应对方式对老年人心理健康具有重要影响。采用艾森克人格问卷(EPQ)、应对方式问卷和心理健康症状自评量表(SCL-90),对老年人人格特征、应对方式和心理健康作了问卷调查。人格特征对老年人心理健康具有直接的影响作用。外向型性格有利于老年人心理健康,神经质性格不利于老年人心理健康;人格特征还通过应对方式对老年人心理健康具有间接的影响作用。外向型性格老年人常用求助的应对方式,它更有利于心理健康,神经质性格老年人常用自责的应对方式,它更不利于心理健康。     

Pieces of the shortage puzzle: aging and shift work

Addressing issues important to the aging nurse and night-shift worker is imperative for retention success. It is important for nurse leaders to create an environment that will keep older nurses and night-shift workers working. The good news is that health care leaders are talking. Research is being done and will hopefully continue. Now it is time for health care leaders to welcome nurses, educators, and policymakers into their circle of discussion to preserve quality health care and retain our nurses at the bedside.     

Une comparaison entre divers établissements de services de première ligne en santé au Québec (Canada)

This paper presents an empirical and comparative investigation of four types of organizations providing primary health care services: private clinics, community centres, health coops and community associations. Case studies were done following a common design for data collecting and analysis, taking into account the organizations' context of creation, their institutional dimension (structure of power and political system), their organizational dimension (co-ordination and production of health care), and their main paths of development. Results show that organizations present many differences when it comes to delivering universal, accessible, and complete health care services. Non-profit organizations offer more promising perspectives for patients and health care workers by encouraging them to participate in their management. Health coops' openness depends on their nature: while consumer coops encourage patient participation, producer coops allow employees to make decisions. In this sense, patients and employees in collective health care organizations seem to have more political advantages than in private organizations.     

高校独生子健康现状调查与对策研究

随着高校独生子女的比例增加,高校独生子女的身体素质和心理健康状况令人担忧。关于高校独生子健康状态的抽样调查发现：高校独生子身体素质和心理健康水平低于高校非独生子和全国青年人常模,鉴于此,建议有关部门对高校独生子的身心健康予以高度重视并通过体育锻炼来改善这个群体的身体素质和心理健康水平。