Explore the vast range of titles available.

In 1988, the Brazilian Constitution defined health as a universal right and a state responsibility. Progress towards universal health coverage in Brazil has been achieved through a unified health system (Sistema Único de Saúde [SUS]), created in 1990. With successes and setbacks in the implementation of health programmes and the organisation of its health system, Brazil has achieved nearly universal access to health-care services for the population. The trajectory of the development and expansion of the SUS offers valuable lessons on how to scale universal health coverage in a highly unequal country with relatively low resources allocated to health-care services by the government compared with that in middle-income and high-income countries. Analysis of the past 30 years since the inception of the SUS shows that innovations extend beyond the development of new models of care and highlights the importance of establishing political, legal, organisational, and management-related structures, with clearly defined roles for both the federal and local governments in the governance, planning, financing, and provision of health-care services. The expansion of the SUS has allowed Brazil to rapidly address the changing health needs of the population, with dramatic upscaling of health service coverage in just three decades. However, despite its successes, analysis of future scenarios suggests the urgent need to address lingering geographical inequalities, insufficient funding, and suboptimal private sector–public sector collaboration. Fiscal policies implemented in 2016 ushered in austerity measures that, alongside the new environmental, educational, and health policies of the Brazilian government, could reverse the hard-earned achievements of the SUS and threaten its sustainability and ability to fulfil its constitutional mandate of providing health care for all.

This article discusses the diversity of family policy models in 28 OECD countries in terms of the balance between their different objectives and the mix of instruments adopted to implement the policies. Cross-country policy differences are investigated by applying a principal component analysis to comprehensive country-level data from the OECD Family Database covering variables such as parental leave conditions, childcare service provision, and financial support to families. The results find persistent differences in the family policy patterns embedded in different contexts of work-family \"outcomes.\" Country classifications of family policy packages only partially corroborate categorizations in earlier studies, owing to considerable within-group heterogeneity and the presence of group outliers. The Nordic countries outdistance the others with comprehensive support to working parents with very young children. Anglo-Saxon countries provide much less support for working parents with very young children, and financial support is targeted on low-income and large families and focuses on preschool and early elementary education. Continental and Eastern European countries form a more heterogeneous group, while the support received by families in Southern Europe and in Asian countries is much lower in all its dimensions.

Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection is a major public health problem worldwide. China has the world's largest burden of HBV infection and will be a major contributor towards the global elimination of hepatitis B disease by 2030. The country has made good progress in reducing incidence of HBV infection in the past three decades. The achievements are mainly due to high vaccination coverages among children and high coverage of timely birth-dose vaccine for prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HBV (both > 95%). However, China still faces challenges in achieving its target of 65% reduction in mortality from hepatitis B by 2030. Based on targets of the World Health Organization's , we highlight further priorities for action towards HBV elimination in China. To achieve the impact target of reduced mortality we suggest that the service coverage targets of diagnosis and treatment should be prioritized. First, improvements are needed in the diagnostic and treatment abilities of medical institutions and health workers. Second, the government needs to reduce the financial burden of health care on patients. Third, better coordination is needed across existing national programmes and resources to establish an integrated prevention and control system that covers prevention, screening, diagnosis and treatment of HBV infection across the life cycle. In this way, progress can be made towards achieving the target of eliminating hepatitis B in China by 2030.

China's current strategy to improve how health services are paid for is headed in the right direction, but much more remains to be done. The problems to be resolved, reflecting the setbacks of recent decades, are substantial: high levels of out-of-pocket payments and cost escalation, stalled progress in providing adequate health insurance for all, widespread inefficiencies in health facilities, uneven quality, extensive inequality, and perverse incentives for hospitals and doctors. China's leadership is taking bold steps to accelerate improvement, including increasing government spending on health and committing to reaching 100% insurance coverage by 2010. China's efforts are part of a worldwide transformation in the financing of health care that will dominate global health in the 21st century. The prospects that China will complete this transformation successfully in the next two decades are good, although success is not guaranteed. The real test, as other countries have experienced, will come when tougher reforms have to be introduced.

Background: As called for by the Sustainable Development Goals, governments, development partners and civil society are working on anti-corruption, transparency and accountability approaches to control corruption and advance Universal Health Coverage. Objectives: The objective of this review is to summarize concepts, frameworks, and approaches used to identify corruption risks and consequences of corruption on health systems and outcomes. We also inventory interventions to fight corruption and increase transparency and accountability. Methods: We performed a critical review based on a systematic search of literature in PubMed and Web of Science and reviewed background papers and presentations from two international technical meetings on the topic of anti-corruption and health. We identified concepts, frameworks and approaches and summarized updated evidence of types and causes corruption in the health sector. Results: Corruption, or the abuse of power for private gain, in health systems includes bribes and kickbacks, embezzlement, fraud, political influence/nepotism and informal payments, among other behaviors. Drivers of corruption include individual and systems level factors such as financial pressures, poorly managed conflicts of interest, and weak regulatory and enforcement systems. We identify six typologies and frameworks that model relationships influencing the scope and seriousness of corruption, and show how anti-corruption strategies such as transparency, accountability, and civic participation can affect corruption risk. Little research exists on the effectiveness of anti-corruption measures; however, interventions such as community monitoring and insurance fraud control programs show promise. Conclusions: Corruption undermines the capacity of health systems to contribute to better health, economic growth and development. Interventions and resources on prevention and control of corruption are essential components of health system strengthening for Universal Health Coverage.

Using a randomized evaluation in Kenya, we measure health impacts of spring protection, an investment that improves source water quality. We also estimate households' valuation of spring protection and simulate the welfare impacts of alternatives to the current system of common property rights in water, which limits incentives for private investment. Spring infrastructure investments reduce fecal contamination by 66%, but household water quality improves less, due to recontamination. Child diarrhea falls by one quarter. Travel-cost based revealed preference estimates of households' valuations are much smaller than both stated preference valuations and health planners' valuations, and are consistent with models in which the demand for health is highly income elastic. We estimate that private property norms would generate little additional investment while imposing large static costs due to above-marginal-cost pricing, private property would function better at higher income levels or under water scarcity, and alternative institutions could yield Pareto improvements.

Genome-wide association studies have identified thousands of loci for common diseases, but, for the majority of these, the mechanisms underlying disease susceptibility remain unknown. Most associated variants are not correlated with protein-coding changes, suggesting that polymorphisms in regulatory regions probably contribute to many disease phenotypes. Here we describe the Genotype-Tissue Expression (GTEx) project, which will establish a resource database and associated tissue bank for the scientific community to study the relationship between genetic variation and gene expression in human tissues.

Fragmentation in social health insurance schemes is an important factor for inequitable access to health care and financial protection for people covered by different health insurance schemes in China. To fulfil its commitment of universal health coverage by 2020, the Chinese Government needs to prioritise addressing this issue. After analysing the situation of fragmentation, this Review summarises efforts to consolidate health insurance schemes both in China and internationally. Rural migrants, elderly people, and those with non-communicable diseases in China will greatly benefit from consolidation of the existing health insurance schemes with extended funding pools, thereby narrowing the disparities among health insurance schemes in fund level and benefit package. Political commitments, institutional innovations, and a feasible implementation plan are the major elements needed for success in consolidation. Achievement of universal health coverage in China needs systemic strategies including consolidation of the social health insurance schemes.

Many actors in the response to COVID-19 are holding out for a vaccine to be developed. But in the meantime, tried and tested public-health measures for controlling outbreaks can be implemented. A scorecard can be used to assess governments’ responses to the outbreak.

A large body of research indicates that child development is sensitive to early‐life environments, so that poor children are at higher risk for poor cognitive and behavioral outcomes. These developmental outcomes are important determinants of success in adulthood. Yet, remarkably little is known about whether poverty‐alleviation programs improve children’s developmental outcomes. We examine how a government‐run cash transfer program for poor mothers in rural Ecuador influenced the development of young children. Random assignment at the parish level is used to identify program effects. Our data include a set of measures of cognitive ability that are not typically included in experimental or quasi‐experimental studies of the impact of cash transfers on child well‐being, as well as a set of physical health measures that may be related to developmental outcomes. The cash transfer program had positive, although modest, effects on the physical, cognitive, and socioemotional development of the poorest children in our sample.