6^th World Congress on Health Economics, Health Policy and Healthcare Management October 07-08, 2020 Vienna, Austria

Biography:

Neev Trehan is a 5^th year medical student at Imperial College School of Medicine. I have recently completed a BSc in Management from Imperial College Business School and have an interest in research and health policy.

 

Abstract:

Introduction

 

Unhealthy eating is a prominent issue faced by all modern societies. Health nudges and taxation are instrumental as policy tools to influence healthier purchasing behaviours, with the aim of reducing the burden of the associated health outcomes.

 

Aim

 

To identify and assess effective methods of nudge and taxation in influencing consumer choices and to compare existing traffic light labelling with Front of Package (FoP) warning labels, which are not currently implemented in the UK.

 

Methods

 

A thorough literature review, an experiment, and semi-structured interviews with public health professionals were carried out to generate suggestions on improving the efficacy of nudge and taxation policy in the UK. The online experiment involved university students around the UK, predominantly those at Imperial College London. Semi-structured interviews with public health professionals of different backgrounds provided varied viewpoints on the efficacy of nudges and taxations. 

 

Results

 

The online experiment found that the presence of interpretive labels helps guide better decisions, and that warning labels possess certain advantages over traffic light labelling. This was corroborated by the fact that a uniquely designed warning label which incorporated familiar characteristics, rather than those used internationally, was identified as the most effective label. There was no statistically significant difference between warning labels and traffic light labels in decision making. However, warning labels were shown to provide better guidance for consumers compared to traffic light labels. Thematic analysis of the semi-structured interviews presented four main themes: influencing food choices, nudges, taxes and policy implementation. These viewpoints helped influence the suggestions we made. 

 

 

 

 

Conclusion

 

Evaluative FoP labelling should be made mandatory. Our findings around warning labels emphasise the need for further research into their use in the UK. This study supports widening the use of taxes, use of interlinking and synergised portfolios of interventions and implementation of more challenging goals for the food industry.

 

Biography:

Susan is currently studying for a PhD in Public Health and Primary Care at the University of Cambridge, where she is examining universal health coverage in Sub-Saharan Africa with a focus on Uganda. She has completed her Master of Public Health (MPH) at King’s College London, United Kingdom, and worked in the global health field since then. Most recently, working as an individual contractor for the Research and Analysis Branch at the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in Vienna, Austria.  

 

Abstract:

Determinants of health in a population are related to numerous factors beyond health services. Ability to benefit from these services is essential in order to foster sustainable development. Universal health coverage (UHC), embedded within the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, is defined by the World Health Organization as all individuals and communities having access to any health services they need, of sufficient quality to be effective, without suffering financial hardship. Effective strategies for financing healthcare are critical in achieving this goal yet remain a challenge in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). The aim of this systematic review is to examine health financing approaches for UHC in SSA. A systematic review was conducted in line with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) reporting guidelines. On 19 July 2019, MEDLINE, EMBASE, Web of Science, Global Health Database, the Cochrane Library, Scopus and JSTOR were searched for literature published from 2005. The review protocol was registered with the International Prospective Register of Systematic Reviews (PROSPERO) on 14 August 2019. Of the screened records, 39 papers were included. The results indicate that a majority of healthcare revenue in SSA is from direct out-of-pocket payments (OOPs). Another common health financing mechanism was donor funding. The average quality score of all studies, 80.4%, was high. It is evident from the review that existing health financing strategies in SSA are inadequate and innovative solutions are needed. There is a need for evidence-based holistic, coordinated and multi-sectoral strategies tailored to country contexts to provide sustainable solutions.

 

Biography:

Roland Polacsek Ernst is graduated from University in Witten, Germany

Abstract:

In context of the 2010-2012 European Committee of Senior Labor Inspectors (SLIC) Campaign on psychosocial risks, Austria amended its Occupational Health and Safety Act in 2013 forcing all companies to evaluate and reduce psychosocial stressors. To comply with this law more than 300 companies evaluated the psychosocial risks with the Module2 of Psychosocial Stressors (PBM2). 41 of these companies with 21.216 employees already evaluated the effects of their risk reducing measures. Data of total revenue, number of employees and the PBM2 before (t0) and after intervention (t1) were available for 30 companies with19.403 employees at t0. All 30 companies were able to improve their working conditions and reduce work related distress. The average improvement was 6.5% (on a 100% scale). The best overall development was made in the Work Environment, with 10.3%, followed by Social Climate with 7.6%, the Job Requirements with 5.3% and finally the Work Organization with 2.6%. In the same period the annual revenue of these companies grew by 8.5% and the Number of employees by 4.9%. Therefore also the revenue per employee increased by 3.4%. Interventions in the context of the mandatory psychosocial risk assessment for Austrian companies led to significant reductions in psychosocial risks and sickness leave days. The changes in the Austrian law and consequent implementation improved the working conditions significantly and also led to a positive development in revenue, number of employees and revenue per employee in these companies.

 

Biography:

Roland Polacsek Ernst is graduated from University in Witten, Germany.

 

Abstract:

Objectives: This study was conducted to determine the impact of workplace psychosocial risk reduction on sickness absence days of employees.

 

Methods: We used longitudinal data with two points of time: t₀ represents the baseline analysis of psychosocial risk, at t1 the effects of psychosocial risk management measures between t₀ and t₁ were evaluated. At both points of time we determined the sickness leave absence days of employees. We measured Psychosocial Risk with the Module2 of Psychosocial Stressors (PBM2). Data for both t₀ and t₁ was available for 183 departments of 28 companies from various lines of business. The differences between t₀ and t₁ for the average PBM2 results and sick leave days for each department was calculated.

 

Results: The average sickness leave reduction was 0.9 days per employee (p<0,05). The psychosocial risk reductions on the 0-100% scales of the four PBM2 dimensions were: Social Climate (SC): 10.0%, Work Organisation (WO): 4.7%, Job Requirements (JR): 9.8% and for the Work Environment (WE): 17.4% (P<0.05).  The structural equation model showed a significant relationship between the psychosocial risk reduction of the PBM2 dimensions and the decrease of sickness absence days.

 

Conclusion: Psychosocial risk management interventions led to a significant reduction in psychosocial risk. This improvement had a significant impact on the decrease of employees’ sickness absence days. Therefore the psychosocial risk reduction has a positive effect for employees and employers.

 

Biography:

Dr. Anil Batta is presently professor & Head with senior consultant in Govt. Medical College, Amritsar. He did his M.B.B.S. and M.D. in Medical

 

 

 

 

Biochemistry from Govt. Medical College, Patiala in 1984 and 1991, respectively. His research interest is mainly in clinical application especially cancer and  drug de-addiction. He has supervised more than 25 M.D., M.Sc. and Doctorate researches and published more than 130 international research papers. He is the chief editor of America’s Journal of Biochemistry. He is also working as advisor to the editorial board of International Journal of Biological and Medical Research. He has been deputed member Editorial Board of numerous International & National Medical Journals of Biochemistry. He has also been attached as technical advisor to various national and international conferences in Biochemistry. He has been attached as hi-tech endocrinal, genetics and automated labs of Baba Farid Univ. of Health Sciences, Faridkot. He has chaired various sessions in the Biochemistry meets. He has been designated as member Editorial Board of various in US and other European Courtiers. He is also involved in various research projects at Govt. Medical, Amritsar. He has done superspecialisation in Drug-de-addiction from PGIMER, Chandigarh.

 

Abstract:

Effective health care interventions are underutilized in the developing world, and income-related disparities in use are large. The evidence concerning this access problem is summarized and its demand side causes are identified. Broad strategies that have been proposed to tackle the access problem through changes in economic incentives are considered. It is argued that there is a need to go beyond the identification of broad strategies to the design and evaluation of specific policy measures. Only through experimentation and evaluation will we learn what works in raising health care utilization, particularly among the poor in the developing world. A large body of evidence confirms that many people in the developing world go without health care from which they could benefit greatly. The poor in developing countries are even less likely than the better off to receive effective health care. Concern for the level and distribution of health in the developing world demands that measures be taken to redress both facts. What are these measures? What policies can increase the utilization of effective health care, particularly by the poor in developing countries? There are two sides to the access problem. On the supply side, good quality, effective health care may not be offered. On the demand side, individuals may not utilize services from which they could benefit. The two are obviously related. Poor quality care will arouse little interest from the public. A high level of demand, made effective by purchasing power, will induce the provision of quality care. Solving the access problem requires tackling both demand and supply side issues. Given the space constraint, this paper will concentrate on the demand side, although a recurring theme will be that the response to demand side measures is dependent on supply side conditions. There is an urgent need to establish mechanisms that can increase the availability and improve the quality of health care in the developing world. For present purposes, let us suppose that effective health care interventions can be delivered. What are the barriers that constrain access to this care, particularly among the poor, and what policy measures offer the greatest potential to break down these barriers?

Biography:

Ayush Malhotra is a grade 8 student at Centennial Public School in Waterloo, Ontario. Over the last year he has worked on this research project and had the pleasure of presenting his work at the Annual Canadian Wide Science Fair (CWSF) held in New Brunswick. Shavin Malhotra helped guide Ayush on this project and Ayush hopes to continue expanding this line of research in future

Abstract:

Obesity levels have increased significantly around the world. Earlier studies showed that obesity was a disease of the socioeconomic elite—those who were wealthier, had easier access to more food, who in the process consumer high calories, leading to obesity. In contrast, recent studies show a negative correlation between high socioeconomic conditions and obesity levels. A limitation with these studies is that they rely on a small sample of countries. In this study we determine the effects of a countries’ income and life expectancy rates on obesity rates for both men and women. We ran a fixed effect panel regression analysis on a sample of 202 countries over 41 years. We find, that if a country’s GDP per capita increased by a $1,000, the number of women who are obese would decrease by .02%. Interestingly, for men, the findings did not match: an increase in GDP per capita increased obesity rates among men. We also find that as the obesity rate of a given country increases, its life expectancy decreases, however, this affect is twice as strong for men than for women. These results shed light on the fact that our current approaches to reducing obesity may work for women but may not be working for men. Future policies to tackle obesity should take in to behavioural differences across gender.

 

Biography:

Bismark Osei completed his first and second degrees in Economics at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Kumasi, Ghana. In 2010 and 2013 respectively, currently I am pursuing my PhD in Development Economics (3rd year) at University of Ghana, Accra.

 

Abstract:

Child health being paramount to hearts of global leaders have pumped humongous resources towards plummeting mortality and negative growth of children around the globe. Governments have tightened their focus on spotlighting a set of highly effective child health policies to deal with the issue of child health. Nonetheless, paucity empirical works’ cynosure actually focus on examining the effect of child health policies on the child health, which this study sought to fill the gap in existing literatures by employing the use of panel data( 2000-2016) collected from West Africa countries. Child health policies affects child health through direct and indirect channels. Random effect model was employed for analysing the direct effect whiles structural equation model( SEM) was used for the indirect effect. Results from the indirect effect analysis bespeak that, child health policies produce significant effect on environmental damage, parents’ health and mothers’ education, with no signficant effect on nutrition of mothers. The pass-through effect on child health produced mixed results. Estimates appertaining to direct effect analysis evince that, child health policies have significant effect on under-five mortality rate with respect to diarrhea, prevalence rate of malnutrition( stunting, height-age) with no significant effect on under-five mortality rate of malaria.

 

Biography:

Chihua Li is a doctraol student in epidemiology from Columbia University. He works as an epidemiologist with an interest in chronic disease prevention and management. Ruolan Li joins summer school at Columbia and works with Chihua Li on this research project.

 

Abstract:

Smoking is the leading public health issue in China. It is unknown how heavy the financial burden of cigarette smoking is in China at the family level. A better understanding of people’s smoking characteristics and spending patterns may generate important information for health policy and intervention. We used the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) for 2011 and 2015 to examine this question. Among 14556 participants from the 2011 baseline survey, we examined their smoking behaviors, including age of starting and quitting smoking, number of cigarettes smoked per day, and price per pack of cigarettes purchased. We calculated smoking expenditures and compared these to total family expenditures and to household food expenditures. We estimated the number of current smokers and their smoking expenses nationwide. In 2011, 51.3% of men (n=3193) and 3.5% of women (n=360) were current-smokers. The average age men started smoking was 22 and women was 30. Men smoked 18.9 cigarettes/day and women 12.9 cigarettes/day. Men on average used 11.8% of their family expenditures for smoking and women 7.4%. The proportion of men who spent more money on smoking than the family spent on food was 12.0% overall and 35.0% among men from families below the poverty line. There were 104 million active smokers aged over 45 years in China who consumed about 700 billion cigarettes. They spent about 195 billion RMB on smoking. Over 11 million men spent more on smoking than their family spent on food. The patterns were similar using 2015 CHARLS data. Large economic benefits could be obtained from smoking cessation, especially by men from poor families. While interventions are needed to encourage smoking cessation among men, policymakers should not overlook the need to prevent smoking initiation among women. 

Biography:

Kaitlyn Thomesen, Matthew Lipow, and Tess Munoz are all currently third year medical students at the Drexel University College of Medicine where they coordinated the operations of a student-run free clinic at Philadelphia syringe exchange. Their advisor is Sara Schultz, MD who is a member of the Division of Infectious Diseases and HIV Medicine, Drexel University College of Medicine and is the physician present during the clinic hours.

 

Abstract:

Background

 

30-day readmission rates are the parameter that hospitals and insurance companies use to measure clinical quality of care and set reimbursement levels for care (McCormack, et al., 2013). The 2019 readmission rate for United States hospitals was 14.9%; however, reported readmission rates vary in accuracy due to exclusion of at-risk populations or patients who seek care outside the hospital network (America’s Health Rankings, 2020; Gupta, et al., 2018). As coordinators of a student-run urgent care clinic operating within a Philadelphia syringe exchange and harm-reduction social services organization, we serve an at-risk patient population that includes a large portion of individuals who are transiently housed, people who engage in sex work, and people who use drugs (PWUD). In Philadelphia, there has been a drastic increase in injection-related infections requiring hospitalization from 2013-2018 (Philadelphia Department of Public Health, 2020). We sought to determine our at-risk population’s impact on current readmission rates and the ability of hospitalization to meet their unique medical needs. 

                                        

Methods

 

We conducted a retrospective review of 607 electronic charts for patients who sought care at our student run clinic associated with a syringe exchange in Kensington, Philadelphia from January 2017 to January 2020, and identified patients who visited our clinic within 30 days of self-reported hospitalization. We identified time since hospitalization, purpose for hospitalization, and reason for clinic visit.

 

Results

 

607 visits, 100 (16.5%) self-reported hospitalization within 30 days clinic presentation. Of these 100 clinic visits, 64% presented with the same chief complaint as their reason for hospitalization, and 21% presented with a complication related to their hospital visit. 33% of visits associated with previous hospitalization were from infections associated with IV drug use, including abscess,

 

 

 

 

cellulitis, and osteomyelitis. On average, patients presented 7.5 days following hospital departure. 

 

Conclusions

 

We identified a high incidence of clinic visits for medical needs associated with recent hospitalization, particularly injection-related infection, which suggests insufficient hospital care for this at-risk population. The number of readmissions for this population is underestimated due to their ability to seek medical care outside of the hospital network.

 

Keywords patient readmission, student run clinic, drug users

 

Disclosures All Authors: No reported disclosures.

 

Biography:

M M H Jayasekara is a doctor working in Colombo South Teaching Hospital, Sri Lanka. She is an MBBS graduate from University of Sri Jayewardenepura. Currently researching in health informatics and related disciplines

Abstract:

Objective

 

To report the results of a systematic review of national Health policies of different countries in relation to patient consent in patient data processing in electronic health records

 

Method

 

Health policies of 19 (14.07%) countries are reviewed with regard to patient consent, from a total of 135 countries that are indexed in the World Health Organization Directory of eHealth Policies. 68 (50.37%) policies were excluded based on language and 67 policies in English were selected for further consideration. These 67 (49.62%) policies were further evaluated resulting in exclusion of 43 (31.85%) policies due to policies being outdated and 5 (3.70%) due to broken links. Finally, a total of 19 (14.07%) countries were selected for the review.

 

Results

 

57.89% out of 19 countries require patients’ informed consent to store patient data, 26.32% allow selective storage of patient data as defined by the patient, 89.47% require patients’ informed consent when sharing or transferring or accessing patient data, 68.42% of the countries allow patients access their own EHR, 73.68% facilitate correction/modification in EHR, and 26.32% facilitate deletion of patient records. 89.47% of countries highlight mechanisms to assure privacy and security of EHR.

 

Conclusion

 

Policymakers’ emphasis on various ethical concerns raised by EHRs has been increased highlighting patient rights related to eHealth as well as the requirement for compliance to different standards and regulations. eHealth policies must address requiring patients’ informed consent in processing of patient data whereas patients have the ability to grant or withhold consent to different processing operations related to their EHR. Furthermore, facilitating patients with access to their own records, facilitating patients with modification, correction and deletion of EHR are widely discussed topics.