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A longstanding debate on health system organization relates to the benefits of integrating programs that emphasize specific interventions into mainstream health systems to increase access and improve health outcomes. This debate has long been characterized by polarization of views and ideologies, with protagonists for and against integration arguing relative merits of each approach. Recently, the debate has been rekindled due to substantial rises in externally-funded programs for priority health, nutrition, and population (HNP) interventions and an increase in international efforts aimed at he

We argue that the global burden of mental illness is underestimated and examine the reasons for under-estimation to identify five main causes: overlap between psychiatric and neurological disorders; the grouping of suicide and self-harm as a separate category; conflation of all chronic pain syndromes with musculoskeletal disorders; exclusion of personality disorders from disease burden calculations; and inadequate consideration of the contribution of severe mental illness to mortality from associated causes. Using published data, we estimate the disease burden for mental illness to show that the global burden of mental illness accounts for 32·4% of years lived with disability (YLDs) and 13·0% of disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs), instead of the earlier estimates suggesting 21·2% of YLDs and 7·1% of DALYs. Currently used approaches underestimate the burden of mental illness by more than a third. Our estimates place mental illness a distant first in global burden of disease in terms of YLDs, and level with cardiovascular and circulatory diseases in terms of DALYs. The unacceptable apathy of governments and funders of global health must be overcome to mitigate the human, social, and economic costs of mental illness.

Background: In 2003, the Turkish government introduced a major health system reform, the Health Transformation Program (HTP), aimed at achieving Universal Health Coverage (UHC). HTP has helped to expand insurance coverage and health benefits for the uninsured population groups, which included low-income households and the unemployed, through the Green Card scheme, a non-contributory health insurance funded by the government. The Green Card scheme expansion began in 2005 and increased rapidly after 2008, following the introduction of a new comprehensive benefits package, to cover an additional 13 million people. Methods: We examine the impact of the Green Card scheme on the utilization of outpatient, inpatient, specialist, and diagnostics services using the Turkish Health Survey data (2010), using a kinked regression design. We take advantage of a sharp break in the availability of health insurance at a particular income level (minimum wage) to examine the impact of the Green Card scheme on health service utilization. Results: Our results show that having a Green Card increases the fraction of people using outpatient services by 68.30 percentage points, inpatient visit by 34.60 percentage points, and specialist visit by 74.10 percentage points. Conclusions: Our findings suggest that a non-contributory health insurance program, such as the Green Card scheme in Turkey, could provide increased access to health care services by the poor and provide important lessons for countries which aim to introduce health programs targeting poor as part of a transition to UHC.

"Innovation is at the heart of all advances and has the capacity to solve problems facing humanity. Societies which have turned away from innovation and technological development have failed in their ability to support their populations. Understanding the nature of innovation in the life sciences and in particular healthcare, how it operates, what enables and hinders it is therefore of great importance to meeting the challenges ahead. This book, originally and concurrently published in the International Journal of Innovation Management, Vol. 11, No. 2, 2007, offers the latest research and insights concerning innovation in the biopharmaceutical industry."

The study, The State of Cardiovascular Disease in G20+ Countries, was developed under the guidance of Professor Rifat Atun, Professor of Global Health Systems at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health at Harvard University and Director of the Health Systems Innovation Lab and Francesca Colombo, Head of the Health Division at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and implemented by a team of researchers and contributors from the Health Systems Innovation Lab (HSIL) at Harvard University and the OECD, including: Dr Thanitsara Rittiphairoj, Research Assistant, HSIL, Dr Amanda Reilly, Research Assistant, HSIL, Dr Ché L. Reddy, Associate Director, HSIL, Dr Eliana Barrenho, OECD, Dr Nicolaas Klazinga, OECD, Katherine de Bienassis, OECD, Lucy Hallett, OECD.

The study, Strategic Public-Private Partnerships to Transform Cardiovascular Health, was developed under the guidance of Professor Rifat Atun, Professor of Global Health Systems at Harvard University and Director of the Health Systems Innovation Lab and implemented by a team consisting of Dr Ché L. Reddy, Associate Director Health Systems Innovation Lab, Harvard University, Dr Lindsay M. Murphy and Dr Carlo Ross, Research Assistants at Health Systems Innovation Lab, Harvard University. The ideas, insights and frameworks in the report are drawn from earlier research at the Health System Innovation Lab combined with a systematic literature review and interviews with leaders involved in the development and implementation of strategic Public-Private Partnerships to transform Cardiovascular Health.