An Introduction To Health: Policy, Planning and Financing

This book concerns itself with the key question: how to improve health in a cost effective and politically acceptable way. What makes people healthy? Why are the poor less healthy than the rich? Why do some countries have a better health record than others?An Introduction to Health is divided into four parts comprising the determinants of health, health service planning, health service financing, and controlling costs and securing user-friendly services.

PREFACE. PART ONE: The Determinants of Health 1. Introduction2. Inequity in Health3. Lifestyle and Health Promotion4. Planning Health Policy. PART TWO: Planning Health Services5. The History of the Organisation and Financing of Services6. Methods of Health Service Planning7. Planning the Health Work-force8. Planning Primary Health Care9. Planning Pharmaceuticals10. Planning Hospitals. PART THREE: Health Services Financing11. Public Health Expenditure and the Economic Crisis12. Private Health Expenditure13. Compulsory Health Insurance.PART FOUR Controlling Costs and Securing User-friendly Services14. Methods of Paying Providers15. The Efficient Use of Health Resources16. Facing up to the Future.INDEX