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The remit of the National Institute for Health Research Public Health Research (PHR) Programme is to evaluate public health interventions, providing new knowledge on the benefits, costs, acceptability and wider impacts of interventions, set outside of the National Health Service, intended to improve the health of the public and reduce inequalities. This paper illustrates how the PHR Programme is providing new knowledge for public health decision makers, based on the nine key areas for local authority public health action, described by the King's Fund. Many funded PHR projects are evaluating interventions, applied in a range of settings, across the identified key areas for local authority influence. For example, research has been funded on children and young people, and for some of the wider determinants of health, such as housing and travel. Other factors, such as spatial planning, or open and green spaces and leisure, are less represented in the PHR Programme. Further opportunities in research include interventions to improve the health of adolescents, adults in workplaces, and communities. Building evidence for public health interventions at local authority level is important to prioritise and implement effective changes to improve population health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper compares the development of genetic testing for breast cancer (BRCA testing) in the USA and the UK. It argues that national political cultures played an important role in how these genetic testing technologies were shaped, and that the shapes of these technologies had important implications for the users of these systems. In order to demonstrate the roles of national social and political elements in the development of new genetic testing technologies, I introduce the concept of a technology's architecture, which is made up of component and the specific ways in which these components are assembled to fulfill particular functions. In the USA, four very different BRCA testing systems initially emerged. However, one biotechnology company, Myriad Genetics, eventually used its legal and economic position to become the sole provider of testing. It offered BRCA testing the way many other laboratory tests were provided in the USA, available to anyone through any physician. The shape of this testing service had important implications for its participants, defining the client as a consumer who could demand access to any of Myriad's laboratory services, but could not choose among testing systems. In the UK, the government-run National Health Service provided testing through regional genetics clinics, using family history information to assess risks and triage care. Clients in the UK were defined as citizens and patients, who had the right to equal access to the testing system but could not demand any specific services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

President Clinton recently announced his reform plan for health care in the United States. The United Kingdom, along with other countries, has already enacted reforms in an effort to overcome the basic problem of having insufficient funds to provide a health service to meet modern demands. This paper briefly describes the recent health reforms in the United Kingdom and highlights some lessons for the United States, which include the need to choose procedures that should be universally provided. Health reforms that involve some fundamental restructuring need to be evaluated everywhere and agreed to by the staff in advance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article compares the health care system of Great Britain and the U.S. It is based on a series of three British-American medical sociology conferences, the most recent of which was convened in Boston, Massachusetts. It is stated that for most Americans, health care is procured through employer-sponsored group insurance plans. Whereas, in Great Britain medical is governed by the National Health Service (NHS).

Most governments devote considerable resources to the provision of private goods such as health, housing, and education. Moreover many such schemes are universal in the sense that everyone is eligible and provision is free. In Great Britain, for example, the National Health Service (NHS) offers free health care to all citizens, while; in the U.S. the public school system provides free high school education. The purpose of this article is to point out that such universal provision schemes can redistribute income: from the rich to the poor, even if they are financed by a head tax. The key to this argument is a discrete-choice model between private and public sector consumption in which individuals demand at most one unit of the publicly provided good while caring about its quality. This seems reasonable for a number of cases. Parents want their children to have a high school education, and individuals' health care needs are manifested in the form of a demand for a particular course of treatment. It is typically neither desirable nor even possible for a child to attend two schools at once or for an individual to receive health care from two different sources simultaneously.

This article reviews and contrasts the manner in which the British have coped with various problems in health care that are of increasing concern in the United States: primary health care, distribution of health personnel, division of medical functions, and the like. It is generally concluded that the National Health Service demonstrates the possibility of providing "reasonable" care to an entire population, within a limited budget, in terms of need rather than the ability to pay. Various problems in the National Health Service are reviewed, and the implications of British medical care practices for the United States are explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author focuses on the importance of conducting a visit to the U.S. among doctors undergoing medical training in Great Britain. Topics mentioned include the incorrect notion that belief in a successful approach in one culture can be transferred to another with similar results, research published in the journal "Lancet" in October 2015 on the results of the government program "Family Nurse Partnership," and importance of focusing on local assets instead of imposing external solutions.