Social science & medicine
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Social science & medicine · Oct 2011
Difficulties leaving home: a cross-sectional study of delays in seeking emergency obstetric care in Herat, Afghanistan.
This study used an analytical cross-sectional design to identify risk factors associated with delays in care-seeking among women admitted in life-threatening conditions to a maternity hospital in Herat, Afghanistan, from February 2007 to January 2008. Disease-specific criteria of 'near-miss' were used to identify women in life-threatening conditions. Among 472 eligible women and their husbands, 411 paired interviews were conducted, and information on socio-demographic factors; the woman's status and social resources; the husband's social networks; health care accessibility and utilisation; care-seeking costs; and community characteristics were obtained. ⋯ Censored normal regression analyses suggest that although determinants of decision delay were influenced by the nature and symptoms of complications, uptake of antenatal care (ANC) and the birth plan reduced decision delay at the time of the obstetric emergency. Access to care and social networks reduced departure delay. Programmatic efforts may be directed towards exploiting the roles of ANC and social resources in facilitating access to emergency obstetric care.
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Social science & medicine · Oct 2011
Dynamics of stigma in abortion work: findings from a pilot study of the Providers Share Workshop.
Abortion is highly stigmatized in the United States. The consequences of stigma for abortion providers are not well understood, nor are there published accounts of tools to assess or alleviate its burdens. We designed The Providers Share Workshop to address this gap. ⋯ Participants reflected favorably upon the experience. We conclude that the Providers Share Workshop may alleviate some of the burdens of abortion stigma, and may be an important intervention in abortion human resources. We present a conceptual model of the dynamics of stigma in abortion work.
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Social science & medicine · Aug 2011
The impact of Immigration and Customs Enforcement on immigrant health: perceptions of immigrants in Everett, Massachusetts, USA.
U. S. immigrants have faced a changing landscape with regard to immigration enforcement over the last two decades. Following the passage of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, and the creation of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency after the attacks of September 11, 2001, detention and deportation activity increased substantially. ⋯ Recommendations from the focus groups included improving relationships between immigrants and local police, educating immigrants on their rights and responsibilities as residents, and holding sessions to improve civic engagement. Immigration enforcement activities and the resulting deportation fear are contextual factors that undermine trust in community institutions and social capital, with implications for health and effective integration processes. These factors should be considered by any community seeking to improve the integration process.
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Social science & medicine · Aug 2011
Moving towards universal health insurance in China: performance, issues and lessons from Thailand.
China is now in the course of implementing a new round of health system reforms. Universal health insurance coverage through the basic social medical insurance system is high on the reform agenda. ⋯ On the basis of critical assessment, the paper attempts to address the issues challenging China as it moves towards universal coverage. Focusing in particular on the reform experience in Thailand as it implemented universal coverage, the following policy implications for further reform in China are articulated, taking into account China's particular circumstances: firstly, the gaps in the benefit package across different schemes should be further reduced; secondly, the prevailing fee-for-service payment system needs to be transformed; thirdly, the primary health care delivery and referral system needs to be strengthened in coordination with the reform of the health insurance system; and fourthly, raising the risk pooling level and integrating fragmented insurance schemes should be long-run objectives of reform.
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Social science & medicine · Aug 2011
Innovation and the English National Health Service: a qualitative study of the independent sector treatment centre programme.
Over the past two decades, an international trend of exposing public health services to different forms of economic organisation has emerged. In the English National Health Service (NHS), care is currently provided through a quasi-market including 'diverse' providers from the private and third sector. The predominant scheme through which private sector companies have been awarded NHS contracts is the Independent Sector Treatment Centre (ISTC) programme. ⋯ We show that ISTCs exhibit a different relationship with frontline clinicians because they counteract the power of professional communities associated with the NHS. This has positive and negative consequences for innovation. ISTCs have introduced new routines unencumbered by the extant norms of professional communities, but they appear to represent weaker learning environments and do not reproduce cooperation across organisational boundaries to the same extent as incumbent NHS providers.