Dataset Information

The Companion Pandemic to COVID-19: The Use of Informal Practices to Access Public Healthcare Services in the European Union.

ABSTRACT: Objectives: The objective of this paper is to evaluate the use of informal payments and personal connections to gain preferential access to public health services during the COVID-19 pandemic and to propose effective policy measures for tackling this phenomenon. Methods: Using data from 25,744 patients in the European Union, six different scenarios are analyzed in relation to making informal payments and/or relying on personal connections to access public healthcare services. To evaluate the propensity to engage in informal practices in healthcare, probit regressions with sample selection and predicted probabilities are used. Robustness checks are also performed to test the reliability of the findings. Results: For each scenario, a statistically significant association is revealed between the propensity to make informal payments and/or rely on personal connections and the asymmetry between the formal rules and the patients' personal norms and trust in public authorities. Conclusion: To tackle informal practices in healthcare, policy measures are required to reduce the asymmetry between the formal rules and personal norms by raising trust in public authorities.

SUBMITTER: Horodnic AV

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9626517 | biostudies-literature | 2022

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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The Companion Pandemic to COVID-19: The Use of Informal Practices to Access Public Healthcare Services in the European Union.

Horodnic Adrian V AV Williams Colin C CC Drugă Răzvan Ionuț RI

International journal of public health 20221019

<b>Objectives:</b> The objective of this paper is to evaluate the use of informal payments and personal connections to gain preferential access to public health services during the COVID-19 pandemic and to propose effective policy measures for tackling this phenomenon. <b>Methods:</b> Using data from 25,744 patients in the European Union, six different scenarios are analyzed in relation to making informal payments and/or relying on personal connections to access public healthcare services. To ev ...[more]

PMID: 36339660

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Project description:Introduction Port State Control (PSC) is a vital element of sustainable maritime transportation. Inspections of PSC regimes have been ensuring the continuity of the global supply chain as they enforce shipping to implement the maritime regulations to be safe, secure, and environmentally friendly. Objective Since the beginning of the COVID-19 Pandemic, the number of onboard ship inspections has decreased inherently for protecting PSC officersand seafarers, while PSC regimes have developed a policy to focus on a high-risk ship based on historical inspection records. In this context, planning for a “new normal” in maritime transportation, it is essential to realize the change in ship inspection numbers and the trend of deficiency - detention factors for the maritime sector to provide current standards. This study aims to present the difference in ship inspection trends between 2017-2020 by focusing on COVID-19 pandemic outbreak data. Methods Comparative analysis with Paris MOU ship inspection & detention figures and entropy-based Grey Relevance Analysis has been used as a methodology to reveal the change in inspection trends after COVID-19. Results After the pandemic outbreak caused by COVID-19, the number of ship inspections under Paris MOU fell dramatically, however, inspection and detention rate remained the same, also entropy-based Grey Relevance Analysis indicates that detention remarks have also changed compared to last year deficiencies. Detention caused by nautical publication and cleanliness in the engine room has an increasing trend on detentions. Conclusion Inspection statistics indicate consistent figures even during the pandemic outbreak, which indicates the current sample group for Paris MOU inspection is healthy. At the same time, entropy-based Grey Relevance Analysis presents a broader insight that the inspection trend on detention deficiencies has varied. Familiarization with the changing trends in inspections will cause fewer detentions of the ships. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12544-020-00460-4.

Project description:BackgroundThere is consensus that the 2008 financial and economic crisis and related austerity measures adversely impacted access to healthcare. In light of the growing debt caused by the COVID-19 crisis, it is uncertain whether a period of austerity will return.ObjectiveThis study aims to provide a structured overview of the impact of austerity policies in the EU-28 zone, applied in response to the Great Recession, on access to health care for the adult population, using the five access dimensions by Levesque et al. (2013).MethodsThis study followed the PRISMA extension for Scoping Reviews guideline. Medline (PubMed) and Web of Science were searched between February 2021 and June 2021. Primary studies in the English language published after the 1st of January 2008 reporting on the possible change in access to the healthcare system for the adult population induced by austerity in an EU28 country were included.ResultsThe final search strategy resulted in 525 articles, of which 75 studies were reviewed for full-text analysis, and a total of 21 studies were included. Results revealed that austerity policy has been primarily associated with a reduction in access to healthcare, described through four main categories: i) Increase in rates of reported unmet needs (86%); ii) Affordability (38%); iii) Appropriateness (38%); iv) and Availability and Accommodation (19%). Vulnerable populations were more affected by austerity measures than the general population when specific safeguards were not in place. The main affected adult vulnerable population groups were: patients with chronic diseases, elderly people, (undocumented) migrants, unemployed, economically inactive people and individuals with lower levels of education or socioeconomic status.ConclusionAusterity measures have led to a deterioration in access to healthcare in the vast majority of the countries studied in the EU-28 zone. Findings should prompt policymakers to rethink the fiscal agenda across all policies in times of economic crisis and focus on the needs of the most vulnerable populations from the health perspective.

Dataset Information

The Companion Pandemic to COVID-19: The Use of Informal Practices to Access Public Healthcare Services in the European Union.

Publications

The Companion Pandemic to COVID-19: The Use of Informal Practices to Access Public Healthcare Services in the European Union.

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