Prescribing Cultures and Pharmaceutical Policy in the Asia-Pacific: A Book Launch Event
Related Multimedia
Prescribing Cultures and Pharmaceutical Policy in the Asia-Pacific: A Book Launch Event
Related Multimedia
China Radio International interviews AHPP program director about China's health reforms
News Type
News
Date
Paragraphs
In April, China announced an ambitious health care reform plan that aims to provide universal access to basic care for all Chinese while enhancing population health initiatives, strengthening service delivery, improving risk pooling, and significantly increasing government funding for the health sector. China Radio International interviewed Karen Eggleston, Asia Health Policy Program Director, about China's health care reform for the radio program "People in the Know." The program, aired on August 21, can be heard online.
All News button
1
Brian Chen
Shorenstein APARC
Stanford University
Encina Hall, Room E-301
Stanford, CA 94305-6055
0
chenbk@stanford.edu
2011 AHPP/CEAS Visiting Scholar
Dr. Brian Chen is currently a visiting scholar with the Asia Health Policy Program and Center for East Asian Studies at Stanford University. He was recently Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center's 2009-2010 postdoctoral fellow in Comparative Health Policy. As a visiting scholar, Dr. Chen will conduct collaborative research about health of the elderly and chronic disease in China.
As an applied economist, Chen’s research focuses on the impact of incentives in health care organizations on provider and patient behavior. For his dissertation, Chen empirically examined how vertical integration and prohibition against self-referrals affected physician prescribing behavior. His job market paper was selected for presentation at the American Law and Economics Association’s Annual Meeting, the Academy of Management, the Canadian Law and Economics Association, the Conference on Empirical Legal Studies, and the First Annual Conference on Empirical Health Law and Policy at Georgetown Law Center in 2009. The paper was also nominated for best paper based on a dissertation at the Academy of Management.
Chen comes to the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center not only with a multidisciplinary law and economics background, but also with an international perspective from having lived and worked in Taiwan, Japan, and France. He has a particularly intimate knowledge of the Taiwanese health care system from his experience as an assistant to the hospital administrator at a medical college in Taiwan.
During his past residence as a postdoctoral fellow with the Asia Health Policy Program, Chen conducted empirical research on cost containment policies in Taiwan and Japan and how those policies impacted provider behavior. His work also contributed to the program’s research activities on comparative health systems and health service delivery in the Asia-Pacific, a theme that encompasses the historical evolution of health policies; the role of the private sector and public-private partnerships; payment incentives and their impact on patients and providers; organizational innovation, contracting, and soft budget constraints; and chronic disease management and service coordination for aging populations.
Dr. Brian Chen recently completed his Ph.D. in Business Administration in the Business and Public Policy Group at the Haas School of Business, University of California at Berkeley. He received a Juris Doctor from Stanford Law School in 1997, and graduated summa cum laude from Harvard College in 1992.
Prescribing Cultures and Pharmaceutical Policy in the Asia-Pacific
Paragraphs
Pharmaceutical policies are interlinked globally and at the same time deeply rooted in local culture. Prescribing Cultures examines how pharmaceuticals and their regulation play an important and often contentious role in the health systems of the Asia-Pacific.
The first section of this timely book analyzes pharmaceutical policy in China, Korea, Japan, Thailand, Taiwan, Australia, and India. The second section focuses on two cross-cutting themes: differences in "prescribing cultures" and physician dispensing; and the challenge of balancing access to drugs with incentives for innovation.
The book's contributors discuss important issues for U.S. policy. These include such hot-button topics as drug imports from Asia, regulation of global supply chains to assure drug safety and quality, new legislation to encourage development of drugs for neglected diseases, and the impact that decisions about pricing, regulation, and bilateral trade agreements have on access to medicines at home and abroad. In Prescribing Cultures, pharmaceutical policy reveals the economic trade-offs, political compromises, and historical trajectories that shape health systems.
Prescribing Cultures also illustrates how cultural legacies shape and are shaped by the forces of globalization, and thus will be of interest to students and scholars well beyond the confines of health policy.
Desk, examination, or review copies can be requested through Stanford University Press.
All Publications button
1
Publication Type
Books
Publication Date
Book Publisher
Shorenstein APARC
Book Publisher External URL
"The Role of the Private Sector in Health" symposium held in Beijing
News Type
News
Date
Paragraphs
"The Role of the Private Sector in Health" was the topic of a full day symposium held July 11th at the Beijing International Convention Center. Convened one day before the World Congress of the International Health Economics Association, the private sector symposium attracted over a hundred participants from nations around the world. Aiming to foster dialogue between researchers interested in the private sector and policymakers, the event is one in a series with the long-term goal of promoting greater research interest and knowledge generation regarding the private sector to benefit health systems development. The program featured several scientific paper presentations and panels as well as keynote addresses by representatives from the Chinese Ministry of Health and the World Bank.
Karen Eggleston of the Asia Health Policy Program worked alongside several others on the organizing committee for this ongoing collaboration about the role of the private sector in health policy. Other committee members included Ruth Berg, PSP ONE, Abt Associates; Peter Berman, World Bank; Birger Forsberg, Karolinska Institutet; Gina Lagomarsino, Results for Development; Qingyue Meng, Shandong University; Dominic Montagu, University of California, San Francisco; Sara Bennett, Alliance for Health Systems and Policy Research; and Stefan Nachuk, Rockefeller Foundation.
Selected papers about the private health sector in Asia presented at the symposium will appear in the Asia Health Policy Program's working paper series on health and demographic change in the Asia-Pacific.
All News button
1
Prescribing Cultures and Pharmaceutical Policy in the Asia-Pacific: A Book Launch Event
-
Pharmaceutical policies are interlinked globally, yet deeply rooted in local culture. The newly published book Prescribing Cultures and Pharmaceutical Policy in the Asia-Pacific, edited by Karen Eggleston, examines how pharmaceuticals and their regulation play an important and often contentious role in the health systems of the Asia-Pacific.
In this colloquium, contributors to Prescribing Cultures discuss how the book analyzes pharmaceutical policy in China, Korea, Japan, Thailand, Taiwan, Australia, and India, focusing on two cross-cutting themes: differences in “prescribing cultures” and physician dispensing; and the challenge of balancing access to drugs with incentives for innovation.
As Michael Reich of Harvard University says in his Forward to Prescribing Cultures,
“The pharmaceutical sector…promises great benefits and also poses enormous risks.… Conflicts abound over public policies, industry strategies, payment mechanisms, professional associations, and dispensing practices—to name just a few of the regional controversies covered in this excellent book.
The tension between emphasizing innovation versus access -- a topic of hot debate on today’s global health policy agenda -- is examined in several chapters…
This book makes a special contribution to our understanding of the pharmaceutical sector in China… Globalization is galloping forward, with Chinese producers pushing the pace at breakneck speed. More and more, our safety depends on China’s ability to get its regulatory act together…”
The colloquium features presentations by Naoko Tomita (Keio University), Anita Wagner (Harvard University), and Karen Eggleston (Stanford FSI Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center). They will give specific examples of how pharmaceutical policy serves as a window into the economic tradeoffs, political compromises, and historical trajectories that shape health systems, as well as how cultural legacies shape and are shaped by the forces of globalization.
Oksenberg Conference Room
Anita Wagner
Speaker
Harvard University
Naoko Tomita
Speaker
Keio University
Karen Eggleston
Shorenstein APARC
Stanford University
Encina Hall E301
Stanford, CA 94305-6055
0
karene@stanford.edu
Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Center Fellow at the Center for Health Policy and the Center for Primary Care and Outcomes Research
Faculty Research Fellow of the National Bureau of Economic Research
Faculty Affiliate at the Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions
Karen Eggleston is a Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) at Stanford University and Director of the Stanford Asia Health Policy Program at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center at FSI. She is also a Fellow with the Center for Innovation in Global Health at Stanford University School of Medicine, and a Faculty Research Fellow of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). Her research focuses on government and market roles in the health sector and Asia health policy, especially in China, India, Japan, and Korea; healthcare productivity; and the economics of the demographic transition.
Eggleston earned her PhD in public policy from Harvard University and has MA degrees in economics and Asian studies from the University of Hawaii and a BA in Asian studies summa cum laude (valedictorian) from Dartmouth College. Eggleston studied in China for two years and was a Fulbright scholar in Korea. She served on the Strategic Technical Advisory Committee for the Asia Pacific Observatory on Health Systems and Policies and has been a consultant to the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, and the WHO regarding health system reforms in the PRC.
Economics of Health and Aging in Asia
View Research ClusterDirector of the Asia Health Policy Program, Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
Stanford Health Policy Associate
Faculty Fellow at the Stanford Center at Peking University, June and August of 2016
CV
Document
egglestoncv_january_2025.pdf
(512.01 KB)
Hide publication sections
Off
Seminars
Out-of-pocket household health expenditures and their use in National Health Accounts: Evidence from Pakistan
Paragraphs
Out-of-pocket (OoP) household health expenditures are among the most difficult factors to measure in the context of National Health Accounts (NHA). Yet their measurement is important: OoP household expenditures are typically the first or second largest source of health care financing in developing countries. Their incorrect measurement can undermine the credibility of total health spending estimates and thus NHA statistics, which are an otherwise important resource for policy makers. In most countries, private expenditures account for the biggest margin of error in national health spending estimates and represent the most substantial barrier to reliable international comparisons. Differences in accounting methods explain much of the discrepancy across nations. To further the academic investigation of this important issue, this paper focuses on OoP household health expenditures in Pakistan’s NHA and suggests steps toward estimating such expenditures more effectively.
All Publications button
1
Publication Type
Working Papers
Publication Date
Journal Publisher
Asia Health Policy Program working paper #9
Evidence on the Benefits of Primary Care: Implications for Asia
-
As part of health reforms announced in April 2009, China plans to expand and strengthen primary care (i.e., provision of first contact, person-focused, ongoing care over time, and coordinating care when people receive services from other providers). Other nations of Asia continue to grapple with how to promote population health and constrain healthcare spending. What is the evidence about the effectiveness of primary care in improving population health and making healthcare accessible and affordable?
In this talk, Dr. Starfield will speak about the robust evidence of the association between primary care and better health outcomes at lower cost; ways of measuring the effectiveness of primary care; how selected Asian countries compare in such rankings; and the broader implications of primary care research for health policy in Asia.
Dr. Starfield, a physician and health services researcher, is internationally known for her work in primary care; her books, Primary Care: Concept, Evaluation, and Policy and Primary Care: Balancing Health Needs, Services, and Technology, are widely recognized as the seminal works in the field. She has been instrumental in leading projects to develop important methodological tools, including the Primary Care Assessment Tool, the CHIP tools (to assess adolescent and child health status), and the Johns Hopkins Adjusted Clinical Groups (ACGs) for assessment of diagnosed morbidity burdens reflecting degrees of co-morbidity. She was the co-founder and first president of the International Society for Equity in Health, a scientific organization devoted to furthering knowledge about the determinants of inequity in health and ways to eliminate them. Her work thus focuses on quality of care, health status assessment, primary care evaluation, and equity in health. She is a member of the Institute of Medicine and has been on its governing council, and has been a member ofthe National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics and many other government and professional committees and groups. She has a BA from Swarthmore College, an MD from the State University of New York, Downstate Medical Center, and an MPH from Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health.
Philippines Conference Room
Barbara Starfield
University distinguished professor and professor of health policy and pediatrics
Speaker
Johns Hopkins University
Seminars