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Violence against women is understood as a public health issue that has long-term health consequences for women. Economic inequality and women's economic dependence on men make women vulnerable to violence. One approach to addressing poverty is through basic income, a cash transfer for all individuals which is not dependent on their employment status. This paper examines the relationship between basic income and violence against women by surveying different forms of cash transfer programs and their association with intimate partner violence, sexual exploitation, and systemic violence. Previous reviews report that cash transfers can be associated with decreased intimate partner violence. This review goes beyond existing systematic reviews by including intimate partner violence, sexual exploitation, and systemic violence for a broader understanding of how cash transfers relate to violence against women. Search databases include EBSCOhost search with Medline, Social Science Abstracts, APA PsychINFO, Social Work Abstracts. Search terms were "basic income" or "cash transfer" and "women" and "violence" or "homicide" or "sexual risk." Other terms searched were "indigenous" or "colonial" or "systemic". This search included articles reporting on cash transfers as the exposure and an indicator of violence against women as the outcome. Articles were excluded if it did not fit these criteria and were not written in English. This search yielded 28 articles that described intimate partner violence (emotional, physical, or sexual), 15 articles that described sexual exploitation, and no articles describing systemic violence against women. We used other supplemental articles that did not meet the inclusion criteria to pinpoint gaps in literature on systemic violence. These papers were analyzed through a feminist lens, an intersectional approach in addition to other theories. This search resulted in 43 articles. Consistent with other reviews on this subject matter, many recipients of cash transfers reported feeling empowered by it. A large proportion of articles found that cash transfers have a decreased association with physical forms of IPV overall, however some articles report decreased, increased, or unchanged outcomes for emotional IPV, such as aggression, controlling behaviours, or threats. Cash transfers may also be associated with reduced sexual exploitation as nine out of 11 studies reported that participants reduced their number of sex trade interactions due to having their financial needs met and studies also reported their perceived increased autonomy in sexual decision-making. This article outlines the gaps in literature, including the examination of cash transfers and systemic violence that can guide future research to best understand how cash transfer impact violence against women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective COPD is a high-cost disease and results in frequent contacts with the healthcare system. The study objective was to compare the accuracy of classification models with different covariates for classifying COPD patients into cost groups. Methods Linked health administrative databases from Saskatchewan, Canada, were used to identify a cohort of newly diagnosed COPD patients (April 1, 2007 to March 31, 2011) and their episodes of healthcare encounters for disease exacerbations. Total costs of the first and follow-up episodes were computed and patients were categorized as persistently high cost, occasionally high cost, and persistently low cost based on cumulative cost distribution ranking using the 75th percentile cutoff for high-cost status. Classification accuracy was compared for seven multinomial logistic regression models containing socio-demographic characteristics (i.e., base model), and socio-demographic and prior healthcare use characteristics (i.e., comparator models). Results Of the 1182 patients identified, 8.5% were classified as persistently high cost, 26.1% as occasionally high cost, and the remainder as persistently low cost. The persistently high-cost and occasionally high-cost patients incurred 10 times (\$12 449 vs \$1263) and seven times (\$9334 vs \$1263) more costs in their first exacerbation episode than persistently low-cost patients, respectively. Classification accuracy was 0.67 for the base model, whereas the comparator model containing socio-demographic and number of prior hospital admissions had the highest accuracy (0.72). Conclusions Costs associated with COPD exacerbation episodes are substantial. Adding prior hospitalization to socio-demographic characteristics produced the highest improvements in classification accuracy. Accurate classification models are important for identifying potential healthcare cost management strategies.

OBJECTIVES: To synthesize the current literature detailing the cost-effectiveness of the herpes zoster (HZ) vaccine, and to provide Canadian policymakers with cost-effectiveness measurements in a Canadian context. METHODS: This article builds on an existing systematic review of the HZ vaccine that offers a quality assessment of 11 recent articles. We first replicated this study, and then two assessors reviewed the articles and extracted information on vaccine effectiveness, cost of HZ, other modelling assumptions and QALY estimates. Then we transformed the results into a format useful for Canadian policy decisions. Results expressed in different currencies from different years were converted into 2012 Canadian dollars using Bank of Canada exchange rates and a Consumer Price Index deflator. Modelling assumptions that varied between studies were synthesized. We tabled the results for comparability. SYNTHESIS: The Szucs systematic review presented a thorough methodological assessment of the relevant literature. However, the various studies presented results in a variety of currencies, and based their analyses on disparate methodological assumptions. Most of the current literature uses Markov chain models to estimate HZ prevalence. Cost assumptions, discount rate assumptions, assumptions about vaccine efficacy and waning and epidemiological assumptions drove variation in the outcomes. This article transforms the results into a table easily understood by policy-makers. CONCLUSION: The majority of the current literature shows that HZ vaccination is cost-effective at the price of $100,000 per QALY. Few studies showed that vaccination cost-effectiveness was higher than this threshold, and only under conservative assumptions. Cost-effectiveness was sensitive to vaccine price and discount rate. KEY WORDS: Review; cost-benefit analysis; public policy OBJECTIFS: Faire une synthese de la litterature actuelle sur le rapport cout-efficacite du vaccin contre le virus de l'herpes zoster (zona) et fournir aux responsables des politiques du Canada des indicateurs cout-efficacite dans un contexte canadien. METHODE: Cet article fait fond sur une revue systematique existante qui evalue la qualite de 11 articles recents portant sur le vaccin contre le zona. Nous avons d'abord reproduit l'etude, apres quoi deux evaluateurs ont examine les articles et en ont extrait l'information sur l'efficacite du vaccin, le cout du zona, les autres postulats de modelisation et les estimations des annees de vie ponderees par la qualite (AVPQ). Ensuite, nous avons transpose les resultats sous une forme utile aux decisions strategiques canadiennes. Les resultats, exprimes en differentes devises pour differentes annees, ont ete convertis en dollars canadiens de 2012 a l'aide des taux de change de la Banque du Canada et d'un deflateur : l'indice des prix a la consommation. Les postulats de modelisation variables d'une etude a l'autre ont ete synthetises. Nous avons mis les resultats en tableaux pour pouvoir les comparer. SYNTHESE: La revue systematique de Szucs presentait une evaluation methodologique exhaustive de la litterature pertinente. Cependant, les resultats des diverses etudes etaient presentes dans toutes sortes de devises, et les analyses etaient fondees sur des postulats methodologiques disparates. La plupart des articles recents font appel aux modeles en chaines de Markov pour estimer la prevalence du zona. Les postulats relatifs aux couts, aux taux d'actualisation, a l'efficacite potentielle du vaccin, a la baisse de l'immunite conferee par le vaccin, ainsi que les postulats epidemiologiques, ont fait varier les resultats. Notre article transpose ces resultats dans un tableau facile a comprendre pour les responsables des politiques. CONCLUSION: Selon la majorite des articles recents, la vaccination contre le zona est rentable au prix de 100 000 $ par AVPQ. Peu d'etudes indiquent un rapport cout-efficacite de la vaccination superieur a ce seuil, et seulement sur la base de postulats prudents. Le rapport cout-efficacite etait sensible au prix et au taux d'actualisation du vaccin. MOTS CLES: revue de la litterature; analyse cout-benefice; politique publique, The varicella zoster virus (VZV) is responsible for both the common and usually mild childhood chickenpox infection (varicella zoster) and the herpes zoster (HZ) or shingles infection most common among [...]

Little is known about the impact of military conflict on sex work from the perspective of sex workers. We attempt to explore the meaning of conflict on sex work by asking women about the changes that they have experienced in their lives and work since the beginning of the 2014 military conflict in eastern Ukraine. The findings in this article are based on qualitative interviews with 43 cisgender women living and practicing sex work in Dnipro, eastern Ukraine. Our analysis highlights the meanings that sex workers have linked to the conflict, with financial concerns emerging as a dominant theme. The conflict therefore functions as a way of understanding changing economic circumstances with both individual and broader impacts. By better understanding the meaning of conflict as expressed by sex workers, we can begin to adapt our response to address emerging, and unmet, needs of the community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine the typologies of workplaces for sex workers in Dnipro, Ukraine as part of the larger Dynamics Study, which explores the influence of conflict on sex work. We conducted a cross-sectional survey with 560 women from September 2017 to October 2018. The results of our study demonstrate a diverse sex work environment with heterogeneity across workplace typologies in terms of remuneration, workload, and safety. Women working in higher prestige typologies earned a higher hourly wage, however client volume also varied which resulted in comparable monthly earnings from sex work across almost all workplace types. While sex workers in Dnipro earn a higher monthly wage than the city mean, they also report experiencing high rates of violence and a lack of personal safety at work. Sex workers in all workplaces, with the exception of those working in art clubs, experienced physical and sexual violence perpetrated by law enforcement officers and sex partners. By understanding more about sex work workplaces, programmes may be better tailored to meet the needs of sex workers and respond to changing work environments due to ongoing conflict and COVID-19 pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]