Health service delivery is being restructured in both industrialised and developing countries. Public health scholars and policy makers in this volume show how this process is accelerating as a result of diverse factors including fiscal pressure, privatisation of infrastructure, and the impending renegotiation of the WTO General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS).
The key policy issues that arise concern the implications of these changes for access and equity in public health provision.
The volume reviews the rapidly changing context in which financing health care and its relationship to globalization and privatisation are taking place. It examines the specific mechanisms and institutional processes involved. And it explores various contrasting experiences, including HMOs in the USA, Britain's NHS, social health insurance in Western Europe, developing countries, and Cuba.
Dr. Kasturi Sen was born in Calcutta India but moved to the UK during her teens in 1971. She is currently at the Institute of Public Health, Department of Public Health, University of Cambridge. She has been involved in international public health research and teaching for the past twenty years. Her particular interests are in comparative health systems research with a focus on health policy and planning. She has coordinated several multi-centre studies for the European Commission, in the Middle East and in South Asia.