This review draws on what is now quite an extensive literature on the deficiencies of health care systems and on the Health Systems Evidence database. However, the poor quality and uneven coverage of evidence on the strengthening of health care systems means that evidence of deficiencies is stronger than evidence of remedies. Moreover, the specific circumstances of individual countries strongly influence both decisions about which approaches might be relevant and their success, so any generalizations made from health systems research in particular ...

The COVID-19 is disproportionally affecting the poor, minorities and a broad range of vulnerable populations, due to its inequitable spread in areas of dense population and limited mitigation capacity due to high prevalence of chronic conditions or poor access to high quality public health and medical care. Moreover, the collateral effects of the pandemic due to the global economic downturn, and social isolation and movement restriction measures, are unequally affecting those in the lowest power strata of societies. To address the challenges to ...

In today's global society, infectious disease outbreaks can spread quickly across the world, fueled by the rapidity with which we travel across borders and continents. Historical accounts of influenza pandemics and contemporary reports on infectious diseases clearly demonstrate that poverty, inequality, and social determinants of health create conditions for the transmission of infectious diseases, and existing health disparities or inequalities can further contribute to unequal burdens of morbidity and mortality. Yet, to date, studies of influenza ...

This section provides a brief summary of the main ways in which health in-equalities are conceptualized, particularly in terms of the indicators used to stratify health. It is by no means a comprehensive account but rather considers the ways in which researchers focusing on the UK have tended to conceptualize health inequalities over the past 30 years and some of the key chalenges to these approaches (critiques which are developed later in this book).

The health of individuals and populations is influenced by many variables. These include genetics and biology, but perhaps more important than these are the social determinants of health. The social, political and economic circumstances in which people live their lives are critical in determining how long they live and with what burden of ill health. These differences are very marked between countries, for example a 15-year-old boy in Lesotho has about a 10% chance of living until the age of 60, compared with a 15-year-old boy in Sweden who has ...

This special issue of the Journal of Human Development and Capabilities focuses on two areas of substantial and growing importance to the human development and capability approach: disability and health. The research on disability, health and the capability approach has been diverse in the topics it covers, and the conceptual frameworks and methodologies it uses, beginning over a decade and a half ago in health (Ruger 1998) and more than a decade ago in disability (Baylies 2002).1 We are pleased to share a set of articles in these two areas. ...

Substantial investments have been made in clinical social franchising to improve quality of care of private facilities in low- and middle-income countries but concerns have emerged that the benefits fail to reach poorer groups. We assessed the distribution of franchise utilization and content of care by socioeconomic status (SES) in three maternal healthcare social franchises in Uganda and India (Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan). We surveyed 2179 women who had received antenatal care (ANC) and/or delivery services at franchise clinics (in Uttar Pradesh ...

In 1776, just when the Declaration of Independence was being adopted in this country, Thomas Paine complained, in Common Sense, that Asia had “long expelled” freedom. In this lament, Paine saw Asia in company with much of the rest of the world (America, he hoped, would be different). Singapore warned that “universal recognition of the ideal of human rights can be harmful if universalism is used to deny or mask the reality of diversity.” The Chinese delegation played a leading role in emphasizing regional differences and in making sure that the ...