Thesis (Ph. D.)--UCLA, 2008. / Vita. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph.D.) - University of Glasgow, 2008. / Ph.D. thesis submitted to the Department of Statistics, Faculty of Information and Mathematical Sciences, University of Glasgow, 2008. Includes bibliographical references. Print version also available.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2007. / Title from first page of PDF file. Includes bibliographical references (p. 133-139).

No description available.

This dissertation consists of three essays in health economics. The three chapters focus specifically on prescription drug use and treatment in various national and state settings and evaluate the impact of government policies and interventions on this sector of the health care market. The first two chapters focus on opioid prescribing in the United States. Prescription drug monitoring programs (PDMPs or PMPs)—online systems that health care providers and pharmacists can use to query patient prescription records—are one of the most widely-used state tools in regulating the prescribing and dispensing of opioids. However, the staggered adoption of PDMPs over time has created opportunities for patients to evade monitoring by going to a state that does not have a PDMP. Chapter 1 evaluates how spillovers attributable to policy non-coordination between neighboring states impact the effectiveness of PDMPs. I find that after prescribers gain access to PDMPs, opioid volume and prescription opioid deaths decrease in counties with a PDMP that are insulated from opportunities for evasion. I find a similar effect in counties with a PDMP that are exposed to evasion. This suggests that exposure to evasion through proximity to non-PDMP areas does not significantly attenuate the policy effect. I also find evidence that opioid volume and prescription opioid deaths decrease in counties without a PDMP that are exposed to spillovers from counties with the policy. Illicit opioid deaths are not affected in any counties with a PDMP but decrease in counties without a PDMP that are exposed to spillovers. I discuss the potential mechanisms through which spillovers may operate. Chapter 2, which is joint work with Adam Sacarny, David Powell, Ian Williamson, Weston Merrick, and Mireille Jacobson, evaluates how "nudge" interventions can impact the behavior of clinicians prescribing controlled substances. PMPs aim to reduce inappropriate opioid prescribing but may be underutilized by prescribers. We conduct a randomized clinical trial of 12,000 clinicians in Minnesota to test whether letters to providers can increase PMP use and decrease potentially dangerous opioid co-prescriptions. In this study, we focus on the co-prescribing of opioids and benzodiazepines and the co-prescribing of opioids and gabapentinoids. We find that letters that mention the state's new PMP use mandate increase PMP search rates and the share of clinicians with PMP accounts but have no significant effect on co-prescribing. Letters with only information about the risks of co-prescribing and a list of co-prescribed patients have no detected effect on primary outcomes of interest. We also explore the impact of the letters on additional search and prescribing outcomes. Our results highlight the potential for simple letter-based interventions to encourage engagement with PMPs and facilitate better-informed prescribing of opioids and other medications. Finally, Chapter 3 studies the prescription drug market in Japan, examining how changes in health care prices faced by patients can influence demand. I exploit a feature of the Japanese healthcare system, where an individual's coinsurance rate is determined primarily by their age, to evaluate the impact of a change in patient cost sharing on total prescription drug spending. I contribute to the existing literature by investigating heterogeneous effects by patient sex and drug therapeutic class (focusing on cardiovascular drugs, antibiotics, vitamins, antihistamines, and psychotropic drugs). I find that for the whole sample, price elasticity of spending for prescription drugs is comparable to previous estimates of price elasticity of spending for general medical services. I find no evidence of heterogeneous effects by sex over the whole sample of prescriptions, but I do find statistically significant differences between women and men within therapeutic drug classes. I also conduct exploratory analysis on the effect of changes in patient cost sharing on prescription drug volume. I estimate a price elasticity of demand for prescription drugs that is larger than previous estimates of demand elasticity for general medical services. I also find evidence that physicians do not respond on the intensive margin by prescribing more expensive medications. Although Japanese patients are more likely to be prescribed brand-name drugs, patients using generic medications may be more price sensitive to changes in patient cost sharing.

This thesis is intended as a broad examination of the distribution of health resources in South Africa. Issues both macro and micro in nature have been covered to provide a perspective that would be Jacking in a narrower study. Although the title refers to a redistribution of resources, the intention of this thesis is to stress the importance of providing appropriate health measures rather than merely apportioning existing facilities evenly. This realization is insufficient, however, if it is not accompanied by the introduction and utilization of analytical approaches for identifying resource selection priorities. The influences on health status are many. In defining appropriate measures to improve health status it is important to be aware of the limitations of medical-care. Chapter three involves a cross-sectional regression analysis of various countries in order to examine the influences certain variables have on health status. This study suggests the need for an integrated approach to improving the health of a population. Merely focusing on medical care will only have a limited affect. However, this does not mean that medical-care is not important. It must just be provided in an appropriate manner. The rest of the thesis evaluates health-care resource distribution in South Africa. The existing distribution of health-care resources in South Africa is ill-suited to the existing health status of the population. There is a bias toward urban based curative facilities. Furthermore, the location of facilities has been based on racial criteria, whereby some areas have sufficient resources for their needs while others do not. Two methods of identifying how these issues should be dealt with are produced in this thesis. The first deals with a method for adjusting the broad distribution of funds toward those areas where need is greatest. The suggestion put forward by this thesis is that a formula be developed that would be able both to define need on a geographical basis, and to allocate resources based on that need. The formula would be used to allocate government health expenditure. This section is based on a formula that was developed in the United Kingdom. The second deals with a method for defining appropriate medical interventions on the micro level. It is called cost-effectiveness analysis (CEA). CEA is used for micro-economic decision-making where a choice has to be made between at least two alternatives for attaining a particular objective. Furthermore, CEA evaluates projects or programmes that are on-going in nature. It should be noted that CEA can also evaluate non-medical interventions to solve a particular health problem. In order to indicate the type of information that a CEA can provide, an investigation into cervical cancer procedures used on black females was produced. The entire black female population of South Africa was examined. A computer simulation of incidence and mortality rates of the disease was used to evaluate various scenarios. The results indicate that significant gains can be made by introducing cervical cancer screening on a large scale in South Africa. A major priority of this thesis was to stress the importance of using economic criteria to assist in making decisions concerning health-care resource allocations. Very little work of this nature is produced in South Africa. Hopefully this will not always be the case.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 538-584). / Also available by subscription via World Wide Web / xvii, 584 leaves, bound 29 cm

M.Comm. / PPPs have developed out of a realisation by governments that in order to improve health systems efficiency there is a need to involve the private sector. Governments throughout the world have opted for PPPs to deliver public services, share risks and attain common goals. While the idea of PPPs is not new, it nonetheless has grown in application in recent years especially in developing countries such as South Africa. The neo-liberal GEAR macro-economic policy, that seeked to reduce government spending and to accelerate investment, catalysed the formation of PPPs in South Africa after 1996. The South African health system is a two-tier system consisting of the public sector and private sector. The public health sector is under resourced in terms of health personnel, health resources and funding compared to private healthcare. As a consequence, public health outcomes in South Africa are poor relative to its funding and have deteriorated since 1996, reportedly mainly due to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. On the contrary, private healthcare outcomes are amongst the best in the world. As a result, the demand for private healthcare is higher than that of public healthcare, because it is better resourced and offers better quality care. The research investigates the contribution of PPPs to access quality healthcare in South Africa. The study follows the policy, financial and governance approach to review health PPPs. It suggests that the 7 implemented health PPPs contributed directly and indirectly to improved access to quality healthcare. It recommends the implementation of health PPPs particularly at local government level, to improve access to quality healthcare.

The thesis seeks to interrogate historically the relationship between multinational healthcare service companies and states in the pursuit of market-oriented reforms for healthcare. It constitutes a critical reading of the idea of globalisation as a concept with substantive explanatory value to analyse the causal role of multinational service firms in a commercial transformation in national healthcare service sectors. It analyses the development and expansion of commercial (for-profit) healthcare service provision and financing in the healthcare systems of OECD countries. The hospital and health insurance sectors in the US and UK are analysed as case studies towards developing this critical reading from a more specific national setting. The thesis contributes to developing a framework for analysing the emergence of an international market for trade in healthcare services, which is a recently emerging area of research in the social sciences. As such, it uses an interdisciplinary approach, utilising insights from health policy and international political economy. The research entails a longitudinal study of secondary and primary sources of qualitative data broadly covering the period 1975-2005. I have also made extensive use of quantitative data to illustrate key economic trends that are relevant to the changes in the particular healthcare services sectors analysed. The research finds a substantive shift in the mixed economy of healthcare in which commercial healthcare service provision and financing are increasing. However, while the internationalisation of healthcare service firms is a key element in helping to drive some of this change, the changes are ultimately highly dependent on state-level decision making and regulation. In this context, the thesis argues that globalisation presents an inadequate and potentially misleading conceptual framework for analysing these changes without a historical grounding in the particular developments of national and international markets for healthcare services.

Anualmente são realizadas mais de 234 milhões de cirurgias no mundo com taxas de morbi e mortalidade relativamente elevadas. Os dados nacionais disponíveis de registros de operações não cardíacas são escassos e deficientes. O objetivo do nosso estudo foi avaliar o perfil epidemiológico dos pacientes submetidos a operações não cardíacas e a sua evolução nos últimos anos no Brasil. Selecionamos a partir do banco de dados de DATASUS, as informações de sistema público de saúde em caráter nacional para descrição epidemiológica de operações não cardíacas realizadas no país. As variáveis estudadas foram: número total de internações, gasto total por internação, gasto com transfusões sanguíneas, número de óbitos e tempo de internação hospitalar. O período estudado compreendeu os anos de 1995 a 2007. No período de 13 anos, foram realizadas 32.659.513 operações não cardíacas no país e houve um incremento de 20,42% no número de procedimentos realizados. De forma semelhante, os gastos hospitalares relacionados a estas cirurgias apresentaram aumento importante neste período (~ 200%), com gasto anual superior a 2 bilhões de reais. As despesas relacionadas às transfusões sanguíneas no perioperatório tiveram um aumento superior a 100%, com um gasto anual acima de 17 milhões de reais ao ano. A mortalidade hospitalar encontrada é bastante elevada no nosso país, com média de 1,77% e o aumento registrado foi mais de 30% no período. A única variável que apresentou redução ao longo dos últimos anos foi o tempo de internação hospitalar, com a média de permanência de 3,83 dias. Concluímos que há uma tendência no aumento de intervenções cirúrgicas no país. Apesar do aumento dos gastos hospitalares relacionados a estas cirurgias, a taxa de mortalidade encontrada ainda é bastante elevada. Estudos futuros são necessários para maior investigação e elaboração de estratégias complementares para melhorar os resultados cirúrgicos / Worldwide, there were performed about 234 millions of surgeries annually with a relatively high surgical morbidity and mortality. Registry and information about non-cardiac operations in Brazil are scarce and deficient. The purpose of our study was to describe the epidemiological data of non-cardiac surgeries performed in Brazil in the last years. This is a retrospective cohort study that investigated the time-window from 1995 to 2007. We collected information from DATASUS, a national public health system database. The variables studied were: number of surgeries, in-hospital expenses, blood transfusion related costs, length of stay and case fatality rates. There were 32.659.513 non-cardiac surgeries performed in Brazil in thirteen years. An increment of 20.42% was observed in the number of surgeries in this period. The cost of these procedures has increased tremendously in the last years. The increment of surgical cost was almost 200% and the yearly cost of surgical procedures to public health system was superior to 1.2 billions of dollars (2 billions of reais). The cost of blood transfusion had an increment superior to 100% and annually approximately 10 millions of dollars (17 millions of reais) were spent in perioperative transfusion. Actually, in 2007, the surgical mortality in Brazil was 1.77% and it had an increment of 31.11% in the period of 1995 to 2007. The length of stay was the unique variable which had a reduction of its numbers in the period. In average, the mean time of surgical hospitalization was 3.83 days. We concluded that the volume of surgical procedures has increased substantially in Brazil through the past years. The expenditure related to these procedures and its mortality has also increased as the number of operations. Better planning of public health resource and strategies of investment are needed to supply the crescent demand of surgery in Brazil