Health Economics in Development (Health, Nutrition and Population Series)

Economists and public health specialists do not always understand one another, to the detriment of how health systems function. This collection of papers, spanning over 20 years of thinking and writing, aims to bring these disciplines closer together, through exploration of basic concepts, development of ways to think about such ideas as equity, efficiency, cost-effectiveness and the best way to finance health care, and empirical analyses of several interventions against specific diseases or health risks. 'Health Economics in Development' explains basic concepts, for the benefit of non-economists working in public health and further develops some of those concepts to show how they can be applied to real situations. These include how the burden of ill health is measured, how economic thinking helps judge the proper roles of the state and the market in health, ways to understand and measure equity, and the characteristics of sound and equitable financing for health. The empirical material refers to a variety of specific health problems or interventions—among others, smoking, polio, malaria, immunizations, and various forms of malnutrition and programs directed to overcome them.