Comparative Health Systems: Descriptive Analyses of Fourteen National Health Systems

Both the structure and the dynamics of health services in fourteen leading industrialized nations--in standardized form to facilitate comparison--are presented here by experts. A comprehensive picture is given of each country's system: its historical and sociopolitical context and its provision of services in the areas of medical and hospital care, prevention and public health, mental health, ambulatory care, health insurance, and funding. Comparable information is presented on dominant health problems and solutions; availability and use of health personnel (physicians, nurses, and others), facilities, and services; rationing of care; and control and distribution of costs. How the components of each system interact --with one another and with social, political, and economic institutions--is emphasized.

Each chapter contains a map of the country being considered and tables of quantitative data. The book begins with an introductory overview by the editor and ends with his summary of common challenges and responses.

Comparative Health Systems offers a wealth of information and analysis not previously available in convenient form, thereby meeting a need both for a textbook on the subject and for a handbook usable by health professionals and policy makers.

Contributors: Australia, John Dewdney; Belgium, Herman Nys and Paul Quaethoven; Canada, Gordon Hollett Hatcher, Peter Robert Hatcher, and Eleanor Clair Hatcher; China, People's Republic, Teh-wei Hu; Denmark, Allan Krasnik, and Willy Søndergaard; England, David Allen; France, Jean-Francois Lacronique; Germany, Federal Republic, Siegfried Eichhorn; Japan, Masami Hashimoto; Netherlands, Harmen A. Tiddens, Joep Heesters, and Joost van de Zande; New Zealand, B. Joan Mackay; Sweden, Edgar Borgenhammer; USSR, Norma K. Raffel; United States of America, Marshall W. Raffel.