Unlike earlier work in medical economics, which has focused on medical care, these ten papers stress the production and consequences of health itself. They reveal a serious concern with real-world health problems in their investigation of such subjects as infant mortality, life expectancy, morbidity, and disability. These papers are unusual, as well, in bringing to bear on these problems new and powerful theoretical and statistical tools. They draw on, and in some cases are, original sources for new bodies of data. As such, Economic Aspects of Health comprises a useful blend of relevance and rigor.

Personalized and precision medicine (PPM)—the targeting of therapies according to an individual’s genetic, environmental, or lifestyle characteristics—is becoming an increasingly important approach in health care treatment and prevention. The advancement of PPM is a challenge in traditional clinical, reimbursement, and regulatory landscapes because it is costly to develop and introduces a wide range of scientific, clinical, ethical, and socioeconomic issues. PPM raises a multitude of economic issues, including how information on accurate diagnosis and treatment success will be disseminated and who will bear the cost; changes to physician training to incorporate genetics, probability and statistics, and economic considerations; questions about whether the benefits of PPM will be confined to developed countries or will diffuse to emerging economies with less developed health care systems; the effects of patient heterogeneity on cost-effectiveness analysis; and opportunities for PPM’s growth beyond treatment of acute illness, such as prevention and reversal of chronic conditions. This volume explores the intersection of the scientific, clinical, and economic factors affecting the development of PPM, including its effects on the drug pipeline, on reimbursement of PPM diagnostics and treatments, and on funding of the requisite underlying research; and it examines recent empirical applications of PPM.

In the United States, some populations suffer from far greater disparities in health than others. Those disparities are caused not only by fundamental differences in health status across segments of the population, but also because of inequities in factors that impact health status, so-called determinants of health. Only part of an individual's health status depends on his or her behavior and choice; community-wide problems like poverty, unemployment, poor education, inadequate housing, poor public transportation, interpersonal violence, and decaying neighborhoods also contribute to health inequities, as well as the historic and ongoing interplay of structures, policies, and norms that shape lives. When these factors are not optimal in a community, it does not mean they are intractable: such inequities can be mitigated by social policies that can shape health in powerful ways. Communities in Action: Pathways to Health Equity seeks to delineate the causes of and the solutions to health inequities in the United States. This report focuses on what communities can do to promote health equity, what actions are needed by the many and varied stakeholders that are part of communities or support them, as well as the root causes and structural barriers that need to be overcome.

Leading international researchers offer theoretical and empirical microeconomic and macroeconomic perspectives on the ways a population's health status affects a country's economic growth.

The United States is among the wealthiest nations in the world, but it is far from the healthiest. Although life expectancy and survival rates in the United States have improved dramatically over the past century, Americans live shorter lives and experience more injuries and illnesses than people in other high-income countries. The U.S. health disadvantage cannot be attributed solely to the adverse health status of racial or ethnic minorities or poor people: even highly advantaged Americans are in worse health than their counterparts in other, "peer" countries. In light of the new and growing evidence about the U.S. health disadvantage, the National Institutes of Health asked the National Research Council (NRC) and the Institute of Medicine (IOM) to convene a panel of experts to study the issue. The Panel on Understanding Cross-National Health Differences Among High-Income Countries examined whether the U.S. health disadvantage exists across the life span, considered potential explanations, and assessed the larger implications of the findings. U.S. Health in International Perspective presents detailed evidence on the issue, explores the possible explanations for the shorter and less healthy lives of Americans than those of people in comparable countries, and recommends actions by both government and nongovernment agencies and organizations to address the U.S. health disadvantage.

To order please visit https://onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca/press/books/ordering/

Folland, Goodman, and Stano’s bestselling The Economics of Health and Health Care text offers the market-leading overview of all aspects of Health Economics, teaching through core economic themes, rather than concepts unique to the health care economy. The Eighth Edition of this key textbook has been revised and updated throughout, and reflects changes since the implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). In addition to its revised treatment of health insurance, the text also introduces the key literature on social capital as it applies to individual and public health, as well as looking at public health initiatives relating to population health and economic equity, and comparing numerous policies across Western countries, China, and the developing world. It provides up-to-date discussions on current issues, as well as a comprehensive bibliography with over 1,100 references. Extra material and teaching resources are now also available through the brand new companion website, which provides full sets of discussion questions, exercises, presentation slides, and a test bank. This book demonstrates the multiplicity of ways in which economists analyze the health care system, and is suitable for courses in Health Economics, Health Policy/Systems, or Public Health, taken by health services students or practitioners.