A Health Sector Strategy For The Europe And Central Asia Region

The health systems inherited by transition countries of Europe and Central Asia (ECA) are changing in response to fundamental and unprecedented challenges. Although the desired shape of future health systems in many ECA countries is discernible, the process for getting there must be invented along the way. 'A Health Sector Strategy for the Europe and Central Asia Region' reviews substantive issues facing health policymakers in ECA. It summarizes the World Bank's experience so far in this arena and the lessons it suggests. Furthermore, it outlines both an external strategy by which the Bank's ECA health staff could assist countries to restructure their health systems and an internal strategy by which the staff could organize their own activities to achieve this result. The publication offers those outside the Bank a basis for professional dialogue to foster constructive change in the Bank's approaches.

Health is a major development challenge facing Europe and Central Asia (ECA) today. Living long and healthy lives matters as much as achieving ever-higher incomes. This report is about how to improve health system outcomes in countries in the ECA region. This report, which explores the development challenge facing health sectors in ECA, identifies three key agendas for achieving more rapid convergence with the world's best-performing health systems: the first is the health agenda, in which the main imperative is to strengthen public health and primary-care interventions to help achieve the cardiovascular revolution that has taken place in the West in recent decades. The second is the financing agenda, in which growing demand for medical care must be satisfied without imposing an undue burden on households, by achieving better financial protection, or on government budgets, by ensuring a more efficient use of resources. The third agenda relates to broader institutional arrangements. Here, a few key reform ingredients are identified, each of which is common to most advanced health systems but lacking in many ECA countries.

Annotation World Bank Technical Paper No. 293.Presents a conceptual framework for understanding the impact of health sector reforms in Central and Eastern Europe. The book analyzes the various factors involved in the reforms and presents strategies adopted by many countries of the region during the early phases of the transition era.

This report is the first comprehensive effort to analyse the economic impact of ill health in the CEE-CIS (Central and Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States) Region. This book explores the interdependence of health and economic development, focusing on the Region's significant economic burden of ill health.

Central Asia remains one of the least known parts of the former Soviet Union. The five central Asian republics gained their unexpected independence in 1991. They have faced enormous challenges over the last decade in reforming their health care systems, including adverse macro-economic conditions and political instability. To varying extents, each country is diverging from a hierarchical and unsustainable Soviet model health care system. Common strategies have involved devolving the ownership of health services, seeking sources of revenue additional to shrinking state taxes, 'down-sizing' their excessive hospital systems, introducing general practitioners into primary care services, and enhancing the training of health professionals. This book draws on a decade of experience of what has worked and what has not. It is an invaluable source for those working in the region and for others interested in the experiences of countries in political and economic transition.

Highly Commended in Health and Social Care in the 2017 BMA Medical Book Awards. Governance is the systematic, patterned way in which decisions are made and implemented. The governance of a health system therefore shapes its ability to respond to the various well-documented challenges that health systems face today, and its capacity to cope with both everyday challenges and new policies and problems. This book provides a robust framework that identifies five key aspects of governance, distilled from a large body of literature, that are important in explaining the ability of health systems to provide accessible, high-quality, sustainable health. These five aspects are transparency, accountability, participation, organizational integrity and policy capacity. Part 1 of this book explains the significance of this framework, drawing out strategies for health policy success and lessons for more effective governance. Part 2 then turns to explore eight case studies in a number of different European regions applying the framework to a range of themes including communicable diseases, public-private partnerships, governing competitive insurance market reform, the role of governance in the pharmaceutical sector, and many more. The book explores how: - Transparency, accountability, participation, integrity and capacity are key aspects of health governance and shape decision making and implementation - There is no simply “good” governance that can work everywhere; every aspect of governance involves costs and benefits. Context is crucial. - Governance can explain policy success and failure, so it should be analysed and in some cases changed as part of policy formation and preparation. - Some policies simply exceed the governance capacity of their systems and should be avoided. This book is designed for health policy makers and all those working or studying in the areas of public health, health research or health economics.

This report brings together the available evidence from primary and secondary sources, including household surveys and results of recent qualitative studies, to develop a picture of the development challenges facing Roma populations in Central and Eastern Europe. While living standards have declined for all population groups during the transition to a market economy, there are growing indications that conditions have deteriorated more severely for Roma than for others, and that Roma are poorly positioned to take advantage of emerging economic opportunities. This report focuses on five countries in Central and Eastern Europe: Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania the Czech Republic, and the Slovak Republic. The first chapter of the report provides the historical context and an overview of the methodological issues and main data sources; chapter two presents the available evidence on welfare status and living conditions, examining poverty, housing education, employment and health; chapter three considers issues relating to access to social services; and the final chapter reviews the opportunities for Roma participation in the design and implementation of community development policies and programmes, and outlines policy implications.

Europe and Central Asia encompasses great economic, social and environmental diversity, its countries are facing various food security and nutrition challenges. While they have made significant progress in reducing the prevalence of undernourishment over the past two decades, new evidence shows a stagnation of this trend, particularly in Central Asia. The in-depth analysis provides new evidence for monitoring trends in food security and nutrition, and progress made against specific targets of the Sustainable Development Goal 2.