Public Policy
A course or method of action selected, usually by a government, from among alternatives to guide and determine present and future decisions.
Health Policy
Decisions, usually developed by government policymakers, for determining present and future objectives pertaining to the health care system.
Policy Making
Organizational Policy
A course or method of action selected, usually by an organization, institution, university, society, etc., from among alternatives to guide and determine present and future decisions and positions on matters of public interest or social concern. It does not include internal policy relating to organization and administration within the corporate body, for which ORGANIZATION AND ADMINISTRATION is available.
Public Health
Ethics, Business
United States
The term "United States" in a medical context often refers to the country where a patient or study participant resides, and is not a medical term per se, but relevant for epidemiological studies, healthcare policies, and understanding differences in disease prevalence, treatment patterns, and health outcomes across various geographic locations.
Government
Lobbying
Federal Government
Human Rights
Environmental Policy
A course of action or principle adopted or proposed by a government, party, business, or individual that concerns human interactions with nature and natural resources.
Health Promotion
Health Facility Planning
Metaphor
The application of a concept to that which it is not literally the same but which suggests a resemblance and comparison. Medical metaphors were widespread in ancient literature; the description of a sick body was often used by ancient writers to define a critical condition of the State, in which one corrupt part can ruin the entire system. (From Med Secoli Arte Sci, 1990;2(3):abstract 331)
State Government
The level of governmental organization and function below that of the national or country-wide government.
Social Responsibility
Economic Competition
Bioethical Issues
Public Opinion
Social Welfare
Sociology
A social science dealing with group relationships, patterns of collective behavior, and social organization.
Organizations, Nonprofit
Brazil
Patient Advocacy
Commerce
The interchange of goods or commodities, especially on a large scale, between different countries or between populations within the same country. It includes trade (the buying, selling, or exchanging of commodities, whether wholesale or retail) and business (the purchase and sale of goods to make a profit). (From Random House Unabridged Dictionary, 2d ed, p411, p2005 & p283)
Legislation, Medical
Financing, Government
Federal, state, or local government organized methods of financial assistance.
Civil Rights
Ethics, Medical
Tobacco Industry
Patient Rights
Fundamental claims of patients, as expressed in statutes, declarations, or generally accepted moral principles. (Bioethics Thesaurus) The term is used for discussions of patient rights as a group of many rights, as in a hospital's posting of a list of patient rights.
Research
Critical and exhaustive investigation or experimentation, having for its aim the discovery of new facts and their correct interpretation, the revision of accepted conclusions, theories, or laws in the light of newly discovered facts, or the practical application of such new or revised conclusions, theories, or laws. (Webster, 3d ed)
Social Problems
Health Care Reform
Innovation and improvement of the health care system by reappraisal, amendment of services, and removal of faults and abuses in providing and distributing health services to patients. It includes a re-alignment of health services and health insurance to maximum demographic elements (the unemployed, indigent, uninsured, elderly, inner cities, rural areas) with reference to coverage, hospitalization, pricing and cost containment, insurers' and employers' costs, pre-existing medical conditions, prescribed drugs, equipment, and services.
Government Agencies
Administrative units of government responsible for policy making and management of governmental activities.
Government Programs
Committee Membership
Environmental Health
The science of controlling or modifying those conditions, influences, or forces surrounding man which relate to promoting, establishing, and maintaining health.
Persuasive Communication
Conflict of Interest
A situation in which an individual might benefit personally from official or professional actions. It includes a conflict between a person's private interests and official responsibilities in a position of trust. The term is not restricted to government officials. The concept refers both to actual conflict of interest and the appearance or perception of conflict.
Delivery of Health Care
Health Services Accessibility
Medicaid
Hospitals, Voluntary
Poverty
A situation in which the level of living of an individual, family, or group is below the standard of the community. It is often related to a specific income level.
Advertising as Topic
Nutrition Policy
Socioeconomic Factors
Social Control Policies
Budgets
Detailed financial plans for carrying out specific activities for a certain period of time. They include proposed income and expenditures.
Insurance, Health
Mass Media
National Health Programs
Community Health Planning
Canada
World Health
The concept pertaining to the health status of inhabitants of the world.
Smoke-Free Policy
Evidence-Based Medicine
An approach of practicing medicine with the goal to improve and evaluate patient care. It requires the judicious integration of best research evidence with the patient's values to make decisions about medical care. This method is to help physicians make proper diagnosis, devise best testing plan, choose best treatment and methods of disease prevention, as well as develop guidelines for large groups of patients with the same disease. (from JAMA 296 (9), 2006)
Family Planning Policy
A course or method of action selected, usually by a government, to guide and determine present and future decisions on population control by limiting the number of children or controlling fertility, notably through family planning and contraception within the nuclear family.
Data Collection
Systematic gathering of data for a particular purpose from various sources, including questionnaires, interviews, observation, existing records, and electronic devices. The process is usually preliminary to statistical analysis of the data.
Hospitals, Proprietary
Public Sector
The area of a nation's economy that is tax-supported and under government control.
Developing Countries
Countries in the process of change with economic growth, that is, an increase in production, per capita consumption, and income. The process of economic growth involves better utilization of natural and human resources, which results in a change in the social, political, and economic structures.
Private Sector
Health Services Needs and Demand
Guidelines as Topic
A systematic statement of policy rules or principles. Guidelines may be developed by government agencies at any level, institutions, professional societies, governing boards, or by convening expert panels. The text may be cursive or in outline form but is generally a comprehensive guide to problems and approaches in any field of activity. For guidelines in the field of health care and clinical medicine, PRACTICE GUIDELINES AS TOPIC is available.
Costs and Cost Analysis
California
I'm sorry for any confusion, but "California" is a place, specifically a state on the western coast of the United States, and not a medical term or concept. Therefore, it doesn't have a medical definition.
Crime
Insurance Coverage
Program Evaluation
Health Status Disparities
Great Britain
Translational Medical Research
Biomedical Research
Decision Making
Interviews as Topic
Health Status
Health Education
Cost-Benefit Analysis
A method of comparing the cost of a program with its expected benefits in dollars (or other currency). The benefit-to-cost ratio is a measure of total return expected per unit of money spent. This analysis generally excludes consideration of factors that are not measured ultimately in economic terms. Cost effectiveness compares alternative ways to achieve a specific set of results.
Violence
Models, Theoretical
Questionnaires
Health Services Research
The integration of epidemiologic, sociological, economic, and other analytic sciences in the study of health services. Health services research is usually concerned with relationships between need, demand, supply, use, and outcome of health services. The aim of the research is evaluation, particularly in terms of structure, process, output, and outcome. (From Last, Dictionary of Epidemiology, 2d ed)
Smoking Cessation
Discontinuation of the habit of smoking, the inhaling and exhaling of tobacco smoke.
Research Design
Managed Care Programs
Health insurance plans intended to reduce unnecessary health care costs through a variety of mechanisms, including: economic incentives for physicians and patients to select less costly forms of care; programs for reviewing the medical necessity of specific services; increased beneficiary cost sharing; controls on inpatient admissions and lengths of stay; the establishment of cost-sharing incentives for outpatient surgery; selective contracting with health care providers; and the intensive management of high-cost health care cases. The programs may be provided in a variety of settings, such as HEALTH MAINTENANCE ORGANIZATIONS and PREFERRED PROVIDER ORGANIZATIONS.
Cross-Sectional Studies
Accidents, Traffic
Informed Consent
Voluntary authorization, by a patient or research subject, with full comprehension of the risks involved, for diagnostic or investigative procedures, and for medical and surgical treatment.
Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice
Residence Characteristics
Decision Making, Organizational
Australia
Health Behavior
Behaviors expressed by individuals to protect, maintain or promote their health status. For example, proper diet, and appropriate exercise are activities perceived to influence health status. Life style is closely associated with health behavior and factors influencing life style are socioeconomic, educational, and cultural.
Social Environment
Prevalence
Health Care Costs
The actual costs of providing services related to the delivery of health care, including the costs of procedures, therapies, and medications. It is differentiated from HEALTH EXPENDITURES, which refers to the amount of money paid for the services, and from fees, which refers to the amount charged, regardless of cost.
Environment
Forecasting
Quality of Health Care
Demography
Risk Factors
An aspect of personal behavior or lifestyle, environmental exposure, or inborn or inherited characteristic, which, on the basis of epidemiologic evidence, is known to be associated with a health-related condition considered important to prevent.
Mexico
I'm sorry for any confusion, but "Mexico" is not a medical term and does not have a medical definition. It is the name of a country located in North America, known officially as the United Mexican States. If you have any questions related to medical topics or terminology, I would be happy to help answer those!
Health Status Indicators
The measurement of the health status for a given population using a variety of indices, including morbidity, mortality, and available health resources.
Practice Guidelines as Topic
Directions or principles presenting current or future rules of policy for assisting health care practitioners in patient care decisions regarding diagnosis, therapy, or related clinical circumstances. The guidelines may be developed by government agencies at any level, institutions, professional societies, governing boards, or by the convening of expert panels. The guidelines form a basis for the evaluation of all aspects of health care and delivery.
Pregnancy
Alcohol Drinking
Behaviors associated with the ingesting of alcoholic beverages, including social drinking.
Environmental Exposure
The exposure to potentially harmful chemical, physical, or biological agents in the environment or to environmental factors that may include ionizing radiation, pathogenic organisms, or toxic chemicals.
Risk Assessment
Mental Disorders
International Cooperation
Population Surveillance
Obesity
A status with BODY WEIGHT that is grossly above the acceptable or desirable weight, usually due to accumulation of excess FATS in the body. The standards may vary with age, sex, genetic or cultural background. In the BODY MASS INDEX, a BMI greater than 30.0 kg/m2 is considered obese, and a BMI greater than 40.0 kg/m2 is considered morbidly obese (MORBID OBESITY).
Wounds and Injuries
Health Surveys
Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome
An acquired defect of cellular immunity associated with infection by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), a CD4-positive T-lymphocyte count under 200 cells/microliter or less than 14% of total lymphocytes, and increased susceptibility to opportunistic infections and malignant neoplasms. Clinical manifestations also include emaciation (wasting) and dementia. These elements reflect criteria for AIDS as defined by the CDC in 1993.
Health Priorities
Preferentially rated health-related activities or functions to be used in establishing health planning goals. This may refer specifically to PL93-641.
Administrative Personnel
Individuals responsible for the development of policy and supervision of the execution of plans and functional operations.
Public Health Administration
Management of public health organizations or agencies.
Age Factors
Age as a constituent element or influence contributing to the production of a result. It may be applicable to the cause or the effect of a circumstance. It is used with human or animal concepts but should be differentiated from AGING, a physiological process, and TIME FACTORS which refers only to the passage of time.
Social Justice
Health Plan Implementation
Local Government
Logistic Models
Statistical models which describe the relationship between a qualitative dependent variable (that is, one which can take only certain discrete values, such as the presence or absence of a disease) and an independent variable. A common application is in epidemiology for estimating an individual's risk (probability of a disease) as a function of a given risk factor.
Medicare
Federal program, created by Public Law 89-97, Title XVIII-Health Insurance for the Aged, a 1965 amendment to the Social Security Act, that provides health insurance benefits to persons over the age of 65 and others eligible for Social Security benefits. It consists of two separate but coordinated programs: hospital insurance (MEDICARE PART A) and supplementary medical insurance (MEDICARE PART B). (Hospital Administration Terminology, AHA, 2d ed and A Discursive Dictionary of Health Care, US House of Representatives, 1976)
Regression Analysis
Procedures for finding the mathematical function which best describes the relationship between a dependent variable and one or more independent variables. In linear regression (see LINEAR MODELS) the relationship is constrained to be a straight line and LEAST-SQUARES ANALYSIS is used to determine the best fit. In logistic regression (see LOGISTIC MODELS) the dependent variable is qualitative rather than continuously variable and LIKELIHOOD FUNCTIONS are used to find the best relationship. In multiple regression, the dependent variable is considered to depend on more than a single independent variable.
European Union
The collective designation of three organizations with common membership: the European Economic Community (Common Market), the European Coal and Steel Community, and the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom). It was known as the European Community until 1994. It is primarily an economic union with the principal objectives of free movement of goods, capital, and labor. Professional services, social, medical and paramedical, are subsumed under labor. The constituent countries are Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. (The World Almanac and Book of Facts 1997, p842)
Sex Factors
Maleness or femaleness as a constituent element or influence contributing to the production of a result. It may be applicable to the cause or effect of a circumstance. It is used with human or animal concepts but should be differentiated from SEX CHARACTERISTICS, anatomical or physiological manifestations of sex, and from SEX DISTRIBUTION, the number of males and females in given circumstances.
Internationality
Health Care Rationing
Universal Coverage
Health insurance coverage for all persons in a state or country, rather than for some subset of the population. It may extend to the unemployed as well as to the employed; to aliens as well as to citizens; for pre-existing conditions as well as for current illnesses; for mental as well as for physical conditions.
Cost Control
The containment, regulation, or restraint of costs. Costs are said to be contained when the value of resources committed to an activity is not considered excessive. This determination is frequently subjective and dependent upon the specific geographic area of the activity being measured. (From Dictionary of Health Services Management, 2d ed)
Health Expenditures
The amounts spent by individuals, groups, nations, or private or public organizations for total health care and/or its various components. These amounts may or may not be equivalent to the actual costs (HEALTH CARE COSTS) and may or may not be shared among the patient, insurers, and/or employers.
Drug and Narcotic Control
Resource Allocation
Social Marketing
Use of marketing principles also used to sell products to consumers to promote ideas, attitudes and behaviors. Design and use of programs seeking to increase the acceptance of a social idea or practice by target groups, not for the benefit of the marketer, but to benefit the target audience and the general society.
World Health Organization
A specialized agency of the United Nations designed as a coordinating authority on international health work; its aim is to promote the attainment of the highest possible level of health by all peoples.
Conservation of Natural Resources
The protection, preservation, restoration, and rational use of all resources in the total environment.
Qualitative Research
Any type of research that employs nonnumeric information to explore individual or group characteristics, producing findings not arrived at by statistical procedures or other quantitative means. (Qualitative Inquiry: A Dictionary of Terms Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1997)
Program Development
The process of formulating, improving, and expanding educational, managerial, or service-oriented work plans (excluding computer program development).
Europe
United Nations
An international organization whose members include most of the sovereign nations of the world with headquarters in New York City. The primary objectives of the organization are to maintain peace and security and to achieve international cooperation in solving international economic, social, cultural, or humanitarian problems.