Search

This study identifies the success factors of the Cuban health care system centered on the relationship between the clinic and the community, in terms of the primary health care system which is community-based health care. It has been recognized that the primary health care system could be a practical approach to develop a better structure and a more functional health care system through building the community capacity. In community-based health care, the responsibility and the direct participation of people is crucial because the community empowerment leads to better health care for the people of the community, since they can take more control of local issues like health care. In this paper, we describe and define the characteristics of the relationship between the family doctors-nurses and the community members, using the method of participant observation, which is an anthropological approach. Given that Cuban health care has so far been analyzed mainly from the macro-policy perspective, the understanding of Cuba’s health care system at the community level, where the family doctor and nurse are closely connected to the local people, is a meaningful task. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Primary care is a key component of a health care system and many countries have been making efforts to strengthen their primary care. We aimed to outline the status of health service research on primary care in Korea. In Medline and nine Korean databases, we searched the original articles published in peer-reviewed journals through December 2015, and summarized and classified the articles. Their publication year, journal name, research methods and research topics were presented. The main categories of research topics were health care delivery, utilization, quality, workforce, resources, financing, and others. The total number of research papers was 297, and these were mainly published in domestic Korean journals (92.6%). The most frequently adopted research methods were quantitative ones, and various types of data were used. The most two common topics were health care delivery and quality of care. Diversity of data sources, lack of public research funding and low participation of primary care physicians were also found. A clarification of the scope of health services research and refinement of topic classification will be beneficial. In short, this study provides a basis for building a primary care health services research database and can be used as a data source for subsequent research. It is also necessary to set research priorities for the development and evaluation of primary care policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to examine the factors that affect the amount of official development assistance (ODA) a developing country receives for healthcare by the Korean government. We empirically tested to what extent the amount of Korea's ODA in health care services, infrastructure, HIV/AIDS, and tuberculosis are affected by the relevant demand factors in the recipient countries. To do so, we carried out country-level multivariate regression analyses by setting the amount of ODA for four health care sectors as dependent variables and the relevant demand factors and economic factors as independent variables. A panel dataset was constructed by combining ODA data from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development and World Development Indicators. The analyses showed that the ODA for health care in Korea is partly meeting the recipient's health care needs. In particular, the recipients with a smaller number of physicians are likely to receive more ODA for medical services. Meanwhile, the amount of international trade with Korea is likely to affect the amount of ODA for medical services. However, disease factors, such as prevalence of HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis, did not positively affect the amount of ODA for those diseases. These results indicate that Korea's ODA system for health care needs to be improved to meet the demand of the recipients in order to achieve the humanitarian objectives set by the international community. We hope that the medical community and the government of Korea can cooperate in setting the global policy agenda for health care ODA based on concrete evidence-based healthcare policy research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]