Genome-wide association analysis with selective genotyping identifies candidate loci for adult height at 8q21.13 and 15q22.33-q23 in Mongolians

We performed a genome-wide association study with 23,465 microsatellite markers to identify genes related to adult height. Selective genotyping was applied to extremely tall and extremely short individuals from the Khalkh-Mongolian population. Two loci, 8q21.13 and 15q22.33, which showed the strongest association with microsatellites were subjected to further analyses of SNPs in 782 tall and 773 short individuals. The most significant association was observed with SNP rs2220456 at 8q21.13 (P = 0.000016). In the LD block at 15q22.32, SNP rs8038652 located in intron 1 of IQCH was strongly associated (P = 0.0003), especially the AA genotype of the SNP under a recessive model was strongly associated with adult height (P = 0.000046)

[[alternative]]NEOLIBERALISM AND WORLD POPULATION HEALTH

[[abstract]]The aim of this dissertation is to evaluate how neoliberalism impacted the population health on the global context and the research question sought to articulate, evaluate and provide an analysis of the effect of neoliberal policy on contemporary population health. We approached the task through a three-prong strategy for policy analysis that included: 1) a review of the scientific literature on relationship between neoliberalism and population health; 2) a cross national comparison of the relationship between neoliberalism and population health using sample of 106 countries; 3) a case study of Mongolia, where the neoliberal reforms were strongly implemented. The results of the study shows that the neoliberalism has had, and continues to have, a profound negative influence on contemporary population health. Moreover, it has in this research been demonstrated that neoliberalism produces a range of inequalities in society, and it was established that these inequalities could have adverse effects on population health. The results from the study confirms that neoliberal rejection of social justice and social responsibility can not be supported, and the transformation of health care and welfare state to merely an individualized matter undermines the notions of a social security and public health, and rejects the notion of health care as a human need and right. According to the findings, a strong role of public health care and a reduction of inequalities in society, will improve the overall health status of a population

Technical Efficiency of Public Hospitals in Mongolia: An Application of Date Envelopment Analysis

[[abstract]]The purpose of this thesis was to evaluate the technical efficiency of public hospitals in Mongolia. Another purpose of this thesis was to study the link between technical efficiency and various factors such as level of hospital, location of hospital and time period observed. In this thesis nonparametric Data Envelopment Analyses was used to assess the technical efficiency of hospitals. Sensitivity analysis was used to evaluate the stability of efficiency scores of the DEA model. The relationships between technical efficiency of hospitals and other factors were then examined using appropriate parametric and non-parametric tests. The data for this study were obtained for the years 2004, 2005 and 2006, from the Ministry of Health, National Center for Health Development and Health Department of Ulaanbaatar City. The original set consisted of almost all secondary and tertiary level public hospitals in Mongolia. Specialized and private hospitals were excluded in order to have a homogenous group of hospitals. The DEA results in this research provide efficiency scores for each of the hospitals through three year of period. For each inefficient hospital the reductions in inputs and/or increases in outputs needed to bring the hospital up to full efficiency. The findings of this research indicate that the secondary level hospitals in provinces on average are less efficient (p=0.022) than secondary level hospitals in cities. Decision-makers should reevaluate hospital performance and reallocate resources among across regions based on needs and necessities to maximize system-wide efficiency