Successes And Failures Of Health Policy In Europe Four Decades Of Divergent Trends And Converging Challenges

This book will help those involved in health policy making to understand the various successes and failures of health policies around Europe and the complex choices that confront the health systems of Europe.

This book takes a broad but detailed approach to public health in Europe and offers the most comprehensive analysis of this region currently available.

Starting with more general issues of healthcare policy and governance in a global perspective and using the lens of national case studies of healthcare reform, this handbook addresses key themes in the debates over changing healthcare policy.

The world we live in is hugely unequal. People in a better socioeconomic position do not only lead more comfortable lives, but also longer and healthier lives. This is true not only in the poorer parts of the world but also in the richest countries, including the advanced welfare states of Western Europe which have successfully pushed back poverty and other forms of material disadvantage. Why are health inequalities - systematically higher rates of disease, disability, and premature death among people with a lower level of education, occupation or income - so persistent? How can we expect to reduce this when it persists even in the most advanced states? Written by a leading figure in public health, this book looks to answer these questions by taking a broad, critical look at the scientific evidence surrounding the explanation of health inequalities, including recent findings from the fields of epidemiology, sociology, psychology, economics, and genetics. It concludes that a simplistic view, in which health inequalities are a direct consequence of social inequality, does not tell us the full story. Drawing upon a unique series of studies covering 30 European countries and more than three decades of observations, it shows that health inequalities are partly driven by autonomous forces that are difficult to counteract, such as educational expansion, increased social mobility, and rapid but differential health improvements. Finally, the book explores how we might use these new findings to continue our efforts to build a healthier and more equal future. Offering a truly multidisciplinary perspective and an accessible writing style, Health Inequalities is an indispensable resource for health researchers, professionals, and policy-makers, as well as for social scientists interested in inequality.

The book focuses on three key aspects of delivery of child health services: service integration and coordination, public health measures, and enhancing the quality of care for children.

Growing levels of obesity (including among children) continued harmful consumption of alcohol and the growing threat of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) are some of the greatest contemporary challenges to the health of European populations. While their magnitude varies from country to country all are looking for policy options to contain these threats to population health. It is clear that public health organizations must play a part in any response and that intersectoral action beyond the health system is needed. What is less clear however is what role public health organizations currently play in addressing these problems. This is the gap that this volume aims to fill. It is based on detailed country reports from nine European countries (England France Germany Italy the Republic of Moldova the Netherlands Poland Slovenia and Sweden) on the involvement of public health organizations in addressing obesity alcohol and antimicrobial resistance. These reports explore the power and influence of public health organizations vis-a-vis other key actors in each of the stages of the policy cycle (problem identification and issue recognition policy formulation decision-making implementation and monitoring and evaluation). A cross-country comparison assesses the involvement of public health organizations in the nine countries covered. It outlines the scale of the problem describes the policy responses and explores the role of public health organizations in addressing these three public health challenges. This study is the result of close collaboration between the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies and the WHO Regional Office for Europe Division of Health Systems and Public Health. It accompanies two other Observatory publications: Organization and financing of public health services in Europe and Organization and financing of public health services in Europe: country reports.

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 examines recent activation policies in the United Kingdom aimed at moving people back into work. It offers insight into how countries can improve the effectiveness of their employment services and also control spending on benefits.