Int J Health Serv
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In Australia, as in Canada and to a lesser extent the United States, the vocational rehabilitation of injured workers is an integral part of workers' compensation arrangements. An essential feature of the return-to-work process is the provision of suitable employment by employers for workers able to resume work following a work-related injury. ⋯ The author examines the major approaches adopted by the various Australian jurisdictions, critically reviews the issue of compliance with employment security legislation, and suggests a number of proposals for reform. Given the number of similarities between Australian and North American workers' compensation schemes, policy lessons drawn from the Australian experiences may be relevant to the labor movement and legislators in Canada and the United States.
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Brewing since the advent of South African democracy in 1994 and promises of health sector transformation, an extraordinary drug war between President Nelson Mandela's African National Congress government and U. S. pharmaceutical manufacturers took on global proportions in 1998-1999. Within months of the passage of South African legislation aimed at lowering drug prices, the U. ⋯ S. government, and evaluates various kinds of resistance to U. S. corporate and government behavior. The case thus raises--not for the first time--concerns about contemporary imperialism ("globalization"), the role of the profit motive as an incentive in vital pharmaceutical products, and indeed the depth of "democracy" in a country where high-bidding international drug firms have sufficient clout to embarrass Vice President Al Gore by pitting him against the life-and-death interests of millions of consumers of essential drugs in South Africa and other developing countries.
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This is the second of a two-part report on the pharmaceutical industry. Part II begins with a discussion of foreign direct investment and inter-firm networks, which covers international mergers, acquisitions, and minority participation; market shares of foreign-controlled firms; international collaboration agreements (with a special note on agreements in biotechnology); and licensing agreements. The final section of the report covers governmental policies on health and safety regulation, price regulation, industry and technology, trade, foreign investment, protection of intellectual property, and competition.
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Reducing infant mortality in the United States is a national priority. States' infant mortality rates vary substantially. Public health researchers, practitioners, and leaders have long argued that social and other structural factors must be addressed if health outcomes are to be improved. ⋯ States with proportionately larger black populations had higher infant, neonatal, and postneonatal mortality rates. States with greater percentages of high school graduates had lower neonatal mortality rates but higher postneonatal mortality rates. The findings suggest that a better understanding of the relationship between states' social structure and infant health outcomes is needed if state-level infant mortality is to be reduced.
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Review
Health as an irreversible part of the welfare state: Canadian government policy under the Tories.
This article provides an assessment of the health policy of the Canadian Conservative government under Brian Mulroney, 1984-1993. Underlying this assessment is the need to test the theory of the irreversibility of the welfare state in the light of its health component. The author argues that despite a political rhetoric that might have presaged a sharp rollback of Canada's Medicare, either through residualization or progressive commodification, Canada emerged from this period of New Right federal government with its state-funded health care system still in place. This argument is substantiated through a consideration of the social policy model inherited by the Mulroney government and how it was affected by the government's fiscal policies between 1984 and 1993.