Health Care Provider Choice

In order to achieve an ‘optimal health system’ health policies should not only be focused on the supply of health care, but also take cognisance of the demand for health care. Studies of health care demand in South Africa are scarce due to considerable data limitations. This analysis attempts to fill this gap by combining two data sets (specifically, the GHS 2004 and IES/LFS 2000) in order to be able to utilize the wealth of information regarding health care utilization in the General Household Survey. The aim is to inform and encourage debate on how to incorporate demand side considerations in order to arrive at improved public health care in South Africa.health care, demand for health, combining data sets, South Africa

Have pro-poor health policies improved the targeting of spending and the effective delivery of health care in South Africa?

Since 1994 there have been a number of radical changes in the public health care system in South Africa. Budgets have been reallocated, decision making was decentralised, the clinic network was expanded and user fees for primary health care were abolished. The paper examines how these recent changes have affected the incidence of spending and the accessibility and quality of health care. The paper finds that between 1995 and 2003 there have been advances in the pro-poor spending incidence of both clinics and hospitals. The increased share of the health budget allocated to the more pro-poor clinic services has contributed further to the improvement in the targeting of overall health spending. Also, it appears that the elimination of user fees for clinics and the expansion of the clinic network have helped to make health services more affordable and geographically accessible to the poor and were associated with a notable rise in health service utilisation for individuals in the bottom two expenditure quintiles. South Africa’s spending on clinics and hospitals is well targeted and more progressive than other developing country public health systems. Unfortunately, it appears that to a considerable extent this result is driven by perceptions that services offered in public hospitals and clinics are of a low and variable quality. These perceptions seem to be encouraging most of those who can afford to pay more for health services to opt out of the public health system, thereby increasing the pro-poor incidence of public health spending. Complaints by users of public health facilities include long waiting times, staff rudeness and problems with drug availability. Dissatisfaction with health services is significantly higher in the public sector than in the private sector and the gap has expanded slightly over time. It is consequently not surprising that a substantial and increasing share of individuals – also including the very poorest – prefer to consult private providers.fiscal incidence, South Africa, health

Supercritical antisolvent co-precipitation of rifampicin and ethyl cellulose

International audienc

What does it take to become a 4x4 Librarian? Implementing the Overdrive e-Book lending system!

What does it take to become a 4X4 Librarian? Expanding staff roles: a practical case study with "Overdrive". The processes and steps used for implementing the Overdrive system.Presentation by The UP LIbrary 4x4 team to the Sanlic 2013 Ever Evolving e-Books Workshop, 13-16 May 2013, Muldersdrift, Johannesburg, South Africahttp://www.sanlic.org.za/sanlic-workshopscp201

e-Strategy 2012: results and progress

Main event of 2012 was the e-Strategy Marketing and Training Event that was held in September. Marketed as ‘Out of the e-Box’ symposium and training workshops. Overdrive (e-Fiction) investigation, implementation, training and marketing can be seen as another important corporate e-Initiative. In the beginning of 2012 the Library IT section became part of the ‘Innovation & Technology’ division. This was an important step as dedicated IT expertise could now be integrated into the e-Strategy.During 2012 the e-Literacy and Library Catalogue managers also joined the e-Service unit and their skills are an added bonus for the e-Strategy. Most of the e-Strategy focus areas staff are now on level 2 and it has improved the collaboration between the different areas tremendously! Focus area leaders from Client Services and Library Technical Services continued to add value to the e-Strategy. The biggest focus in 2012 was mobile developments (although quite ad hoc!) and this will also receive attention in 2013.cp201

The UP Library e-Strategy 2012 and the role of Information Specialists

The University of Pretoria Library Services e-Strategy (Innovation and Technology) 2012 is described with the emphasis on the role that Information Specialists can play. e-Strategy focus areas: e-Research, e-Learning, e-Resources, Open Scholarship, Web 2 tools, Gamification, Digitisation and Preservation, Mobile Services, Repositories, Library Web.The UP Library e-Strategy 2012 and the role of the information specialists as presented to the UPLibrary Strategy 2010-2015 roadshows 2012cp201

Pan-tropical prediction of forest structure from the largest trees

Aim: Large tropical trees form the interface between ground and airborne observations, offering a unique opportunity to capture forest properties remotely and to investigate their variations on broad scales. However, despite rapid development of metrics to characterize the forest canopy from remotely sensed data, a gap remains between aerial and field inventories. To close this gap, we propose a new pan-tropical model to predict plot-level forest structure properties and biomass from only the largest trees. Location: Pan-tropical. Time period: Early 21st century. Major taxa studied: Woody plants. Methods: Using a dataset of 867 plots distributed among 118 sites across the tropics, we tested the prediction of the quadratic mean diameter, basal area, Lorey's height, community wood density and aboveground biomass (AGB) from the ith largest trees. Results: Measuring the largest trees in tropical forests enables unbiased predictions of plot- and site-level forest structure. The 20 largest trees per hectare predicted quadratic mean diameter, basal area, Lorey's height, community wood density and AGB with 12, 16, 4, 4 and 17.7% of relative error, respectively. Most of the remaining error in biomass prediction is driven by differences in the proportion of total biomass held in medium-sized trees (50–70 cm diameter at breast height), which shows some continental dependency, with American tropical forests presenting the highest proportion of total biomass in these intermediate-diameter classes relative to other continents. Main conclusions: Our approach provides new information on tropical forest structure and can be used to generate accurate field estimates of tropical forest carbon stocks to support the calibration and validation of current and forthcoming space missions. It will reduce the cost of field inventories and contribute to scientific understanding of tropical forest ecosystems and response to climate change