The Asian health policy program is pleased to announce that a conference on "Provider Payment Incentives in the Asia Pacific" will be held November 7-8, 2008, at the China Center for Economic Research at Peking University in Beijing, P.R. China.

Organizers of the conference include health economists at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center at Stanford University; the China Center for Economic Research at Peking University; Tsinghua University School of Economics and Management Department of Economics; and Seoul National University School of Public Health.

We welcome empirical and theoretical research analyzing how reimbursement incentives shape health and healthcare behavior in the economies of the Asia Pacific. We especially welcome evaluations of policy reforms and natural experiments impacting health service provider incentives. The papers can examine payment incentives in one country, region, or healthcare setting, or include comparative analysis of two or more regions in the Asia Pacific.

Please email papers or extended abstracts (about 500 words) to Karen Eggleston. The submissions deadline is June 1, 2008. The selection committee will notify authors by July 1, 2008.

We also encourage inquiries from researchers that may have access to relevant payment reform data but are interested in support regarding their research design or analytic methods. We will work with you to identify appropriate collaborators and possible financial support for completing the research.

Authors of papers selected for presentation will receive partial subsidy for their participation in the conference as well as opportunity to publish their research in a special volume through the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center at Stanford University or in a special issue of an English-language health policy journal.

Throughout history, nations have waged war against epidemics from bubonic plague to pulmonary tuberculosis. Today we confront HIV/AIDS, SARS, and avian influenza, among other major infectious diseases. Scientists around the world scrutinize viruses and bacteria more intently than ever. Yet while scientific advances are crucial, they are insufficient. The world is not well prepared for the next health crisis.

This timely book argues that the battle against infectious disease epidemics must be fought on two fronts. The first, of course, is the laboratory. The second is the wider social context that involves ordinary individuals and groups, legislators, and the state. The failure to contain HIV/AIDS and the emergence of new infectious diseases highlight the inadequacies of current preventive and management approaches to deal with epidemics.

The authors of Crisis Preparedness offer perspectives from social science, epidemiology, and public health, collectively seeking to answer the question: How can we prepare for the next global epidemic?

Dr. Karen Eggleston will join the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center as a center fellow on July 1, 2007. Dr. Eggleston will lead the center's program on comparative health care in East Asia.

Dr. Eggleston's research focuses on comparative healthcare systems and their link to broader social protection policies during economic development and transition from central planning to market-based economies; payment incentives and their impact on healthcare insurer and provider behavior; the market structure of healthcare, including competition, integration, ownership, and healthcare productivity; and incentives surrounding health behaviors such as the spread of HIV/AIDS, overuse of antibiotics, and smoking. She studied in China for two years and was a Fulbright scholar in Korea.

Eggleston earned her Ph.D. in public policy from Harvard University in 1999. She has an M.A. in economics and another in Asian studies from the University of Hawaii, Economics (August 1995 and May 1992, respectively.) She is currently an assistant professor of economics at Tufts University in Boston. Dr. Eggleston joined the faculty at Tufts in 1999.

Currently, Dr. Eggleston is a research associate at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and an academic program coordinator at the Kennedy School Health Care Delivery Policy Program also at Harvard. Dr. Eggleson has been a research associate at the China Academy of Health Policy (CAHP) at Peking University, Beijing, China since 2003 and in the summer of 2004 she was a consultant to the World Bank on their project on health service delivery and the rural health sector.

"Karen will be a great addition to the center," says director of the center, Gi-Wook Shin.