Green and Gold: Promoting Eco-Adventure and Cultural Tourism for Inclusive and Sustainable Growth

This paper briefly reviews the literature on the emerging concept of eco-adventure and cultural tourism, dubbed "green and gold tourism," respectively. It provides the rationale for conducting such a study in the Philippines (why the concern for inclusivity and environmental sustainability in tourism). It then establishes the feasible scope of such study and lists illustrative activities of inclusive and sustainable green and gold tourism. It also identifies concerns and issues about green and gold tourism in APEC countries and in the Philippines. Finally, it classifies emerging good practices in this area, including volunteer travel, promotion of home stays, community-organized and -owned tourism activities, establishing nonmainstream tourist routes and destinations, and tourists' involvement in cultural preservation and eco-rehabilitation

Review of the Cheaper Medicines Program of the Philippines: Botika ng Barangay, Botika ng Bayan, P100 Treatment Pack, and the Role of PITC Pharma, Inc. in Government Drug Procurement

This report provides an assessment of the Department of Health's (DOH) three drug provision programs, i.e., Botika ng Barangay (BnB), Botika ng Bayan (BNB), and the P100 Treatment Pack (P100). (a) The BnB program expanded its distribution network rapidly in the past decade, contributing to improvement in market contestability. The BnBs showed that generic drug retailing can have modest profitability in rural areas, thus encouraging the private sector to enter the market aggressively, eventually outpricing some of the BnBs. In addition, while the number of BnBs has grown rapidly, not all of them have been provided with sufficient financial and management support to make them sustainable. DOH has taken cognizance of the problem and has instituted a moratorium on further BnB expansion until problems in restocking and financing are addressed. (b) BNBs are private franchises supported by the PITC Pharma Inc., a government parastatal. They are more sustainable than BnBs, but are facing aggressive competition from private franchisors which are able to offer better terms to their franchisees. (c) The P100 Treatment Pack operates on the principle of improving patient compliance to treatment through less expensive generic drug packs. Introduced in 2009, the program initially showed significant patient savings compared to private sector generic equivalents. The problem is its underfunding, poor reporting of sold items by participating hospitals, short drug list, and limited outlets. Since then, aggressive private sector generic retailers have entered the market offering similar treatment packs. The program is planned to be configured as a primary care pharmacy benefit under PhilHealth

Does fiscal decentralization improve health outcomes? - evidence from a cross-country analysis

Decentralization of fiscal responsibilities has emerged as a primary objective on the agendas of national governments, and international organizations alike. Yet there is little empirical evidence on the potential benefits of this intervention. The authors fill in some quantitative evidence. Using panel data on infant mortality rates, GDP per capita, and the share of public expenditures managed by local governments, they find greater fiscal decentralization is consistently associated with lower mortality rates. The results suggest that the benefits of fiscal decentralization are particularly important for poor countries. They suggest also that the positive effects of fiscal decentralization on infant mortality, are greater in institutional environments that promote political rights. Fiscal decentralization also appears to be a mechanism for improving health outcomes in environments with a high level of ethno-linguistic fractionalization, however, the benefits from fiscal decentralization tend to be smaller.National Governance,Health Economics&Finance,Banks&Banking Reform,Economic Theory&Research,Municipal Financial Management

Health manpower employment and productivity in the Philippines

The study analyzes two of the major issues which emerged in health manpower planning and development exercises in the Philippines, namely, employment and productivity of specific categories of health manpower in the country's health delivery system. The first issue involves the critical questions of supply of, and needs or requirements for, specific health manpower in the country's health care delivery system. The second issue, meanwhile, emerged because of lack of certain types of health personnel as well as the rapid increase in the cost of medical care. These two issues evolved from the nagging concern over the maldistribution of health personnel and the existence of imbalances between what and how many of specific types of health manpower are needed and available in the country. The study covers only fourtypes of health professionals: physicians, nurses, midwives and dentists. This study is organized as follows. The next section discusses the supply of health manpower in the country. This includes a discussion of the estimates of actual supply as of 1987, their employment characteristics in terms of employment settings and their regional distribution. An attempt to forecast the supply of health manpower up to the year 2000 is made. The study also examines the factors which influence the location decisions of these health workers. Additional issues on supply such as production, utilization and migration are also discussed. The third section focuses on the needs of health manpower with a discussion on how to estimate or project the needs or requirements of health manpower. The fourth section discusses estimation of the needs of health manpower using the different methodologies. These estimates are then compared with supply to identify shortages or surpluses. Adiscussion of demand for health manpower is presented in Section 5. Although no actual estimation of demand equations are made due to insufficient data, several conceptual and methodological issues are discussed. Section 6 presents various productivity issues. Finally, section 7 concludes the study with some policy recommendations

Medical Tourism in the Philippines: Market Profile, Benchmarking Exercise, and S.W.O.T. Analysis

This report reviews the medical tourism industry in the Philippines. It discusses the global market for medical tourism, analyzes the demand and supply aspects of the local industry, and identifies its drivers of growth. It performs an industry benchmarking exercise by looking at benchmarks associated with strategy setting, organization and management, service quality, care, travel and accommodation, and financing. It also conducts an analysis of the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of the industry

People-to-People Tourism in APEC: Facilitating Cross-Border Entry and Exit, with Special Focus on ASEAN

This paper discusses the promotion of person-to person (PTP) tourism in the member-countries of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), focusing on the ten countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). PTP can be defined as the cross-border movement of people from one country to another on a repeated basis for (a) educational, training, or related capacity building; (b) research and development (R&D) cooperation; (c) police, constabulary, military, security, or anti-crime assignments; (d) responding to health epidemics or outbreaks; (e) medical tourism; (f) responding to disaster or calamity; (g) management of environmental parks and natural resource assets; (h) local border traffic; and (i) other valid reasons that APEC countries will deem important. The paper situates PTP tourism in the context of intra-ASEAN and APEC tourism, discusses the rationale for increasing PTP tourism, and the current obstacles of doing this. It reviews recent international practices in promoting PTP tourism through entry and exit facilitation, identifying general as well as specific programs and policies in a number of innovating countries. The paper ends with recommendations to facilitate PTP tourism in ASEAN and APEC

Health Manpower Employment and Productivity in the Philippines

In the paper’s analysis of health manpower, two major issues emerged: employment and productivity. The former includes the analysis of supply needs, the requirements for specific categories of health manpower, employment settings and some issues on production and migration. The forecast of supply and demand up to the year 2000 allows the author to estimate surpluses and shortages. The latter focuses more on the conceptual and methodological levels.productivity, health sector, health manpower, employment opportunities

Encuesta de conocimientos, actitudes y prácticas sobre dietas milagro en población española: estudio transversal “DiMilagro”

Introduction: The recurrence of fad diets could be due to the difficulty of the population to modify their lifestyles and improve its adherence to therapeutic interventions. The objective of this work was to evaluate the level of knowledge, attitudes and practices on fad diets in a panel of consumers with socio-demographic characteristics assimilated to the Spanish population. Material and methods: Cross-sectional study through an on-line survey of knowledge, attitudes and practices, not validated and developed according to FAO guidelines, carried out on a sample of individuals between 18 and 65 years of both sexes. Results: 2,604 surveys were valid (50% women). The majority (57.9%) recognized some characteristics of fad diets and were able to identify them (65.8%). 90% of respondents believe that fad diets do not work and their effects are mainly negative (82.6%).  487 people (18.7%) reported having followed one or more fad diets, between 15 days and more than 6 months, used an associated product (56%) from herbalists (52%) and pharmacies (30%), and perceived some of the promised effects (57%), although 33% perceived some minor adverse effect. 73.7% of the total sample believe that fad diets are a problem and 78.6% believe that are dangerous. 82.1% do not feel vulnerability to follow a fad diet. Conclusions: The knowledge on fad diets is medium in the population studied, most perceive them as a problem but do not feel vulnerable or prone to follow a fad diet. However, 22% of the sample followed some kind of fad diets although only 18.7% recognize it. New research is needed to further explore how the population's level of knowledge and attitude towards fad diets is related to their practices.Introducción: La aparición de dietas milagro podría deberse a la dificultad de la población para modificar sus estilos de vida y conseguir la adherencia a intervenciones terapéuticas. El objetivo de este trabajo fue evaluar los conocimientos, actitudes y prácticas sobre dietas milagro en un panel de consumidores de características socio demográficas similares a la población española. Material y métodos: Estudio transversal con encuesta online de conocimientos, actitudes y prácticas no validada y elaborada según guías de FAO, en muestra de ambos sexos de 18 a 65 años. Resultados: Hubo 2.604 encuestas válidas (50% mujeres). La mayoría (57,9%) declaró conocer alguna característica de las dietas milagro y supo identificarlas (65,8%). El 90% cree que no funcionan y que sus efectos son principalmente negativos (82,6%).  487 personas (18,7%) declararon haber seguido una o varias dietas milagro, durante 15 días y más de 6 meses, tomado algún producto asociado (56%) que adquirieron en herboristerías (52%) y farmacias (30%), y creyeron percibir (57%, n=277) alguno de los efectos prometidos, aunque sólo a corto plazo, y el 33% creyó percibir algún efecto adverso de carácter leve. El 73,7% del total de la muestra declaró que las dietas milagro son un problema y el 78,6% que son peligrosas. El 82,1% no indicó sentirse vulnerable por la adopción de una dieta milagro. Conclusiones: El nivel de conocimiento sobre las dietas milagro en la población del estudio es medio, la mayoría las percibe como un problema, pero no se siente vulnerable ni con intención de seguir una dieta milagro. Sin embargo, el 22% de la muestra siguió algún tipo de dieta milagro, aunque solo el 18,7% lo reconoce. Es necesario nuevas investigaciones que exploren, en mayor profundidad, cómo el nivel conocimiento y actitud de la población frente a las dietas milagro se relaciona con la práctica

Elaboración de píldoras educativas sobre Historia de la Veterinaria

Tras el éxito de la utilización de la ludificación como motivación para el estudio de la Historia de la Veterinaria, nos propusimos crear pequeños vídeos o píldoras de conocimiento sobre hechos o personajes históricos que fueran reusables (se pueden utilizar en diferentes contextos), interoperables (sirven para propósitos diferentes) y accesibles por su formato digital que facilita el almacenaje y su recuperación. En este proyecto se ha grabado más escenas antes del confinamiento y preparados la historioteca con una de las píldoras ya definitivas

Selected Aspects of Medical Equipments and Instruments Industries in the Philippines

The objectives of this study are to construct a profile of the medical instruments and equipment sector and to identify policy issues related to the acquisition, diffusion and use of pharmaceuticals and nonmedical supplies. The discussions in this paper are geared towards the synthesis of overall policy questions rather than analysis and testing of a particular hypothesis