BackgroundPostpartum depression (PPD) affects 10-15% of women, is costly and debilitating, yet often remains undiagnosed. Within Alberta, Canada, screening is conducted at public health well child clinics using the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale. If screened high-risk, women are offered referral to their family physicians for follow up diagnosis and treatment.
| Thomas Lange
A healthy mouth is an essential ingredient for overall good health, but a Canadian’s access to comprehensive dental care is dependent on their ability to attain private insurance. This paper seeks to estimate the gross and net total cost of two policy options for introducing comprehensive dental care into Canadian Medicare. Using a micro-costing approach for estimating the…
| Thomas Lange
This paper presents a formulaic approach to micro-costing the expected direct clinical cost of a given public dental program in Canada. A micro-costing approach enables policy leaders to create or radically redesign existing public-sector dental programs by projecting the total cost generated by expected clinical demand. Current public dental plans employ heavy restrictions around…
The recent report by Alberta’s Blue ribbon panel on the province’s finances denounced Alberta’s Fee-for-Service (FFS) model as a significant source of inefficiency and cost within the health system, going as far as to suggest legislating a non-FFS model. If pursued, Alberta would be the first province since the start of Canadian Medicare to fully shift away from…
This study examined children’s health care service use, mothers’ workforce participation, and mothers’ community engagement based on children’s risk of developmental delay.
Abstract: Affecting 10–15% of women, postpartum depression (PPD) can be debilitating and costly. While early identification has the potential to improve timely care, recommendations regarding the implementation of routine screening are inconsistent. In Alberta, screening is completed using the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale during public health well child clinic visits.…
Education of women regarding healthy lifestyle choices is an important function for prenatal care providers. Within Canada, women choose to receive pregnancy care from one of a variety of publicly funded care providers. This study examines the association between the type of care provider(s) seen during pregnancy and the provision of advice related to nutrition, weight management,…
Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) is a preventable disorder caused by maternal alcohol consumption and marked by a range of physical and mental disabilities. Although recognized by the scientific and medical community as a clinical disorder, no internationally standardized diagnostic tool yet exists for FASD.
Using sources ranging from the biblical Book of Judges (pre-1700) up until the first public health bulletin (1977), we seek to provide an overview of the academic debate around early historical accounts ostensibly attributed to the awareness of alcohol as a prenatal teratogen as well as to describe the social and political influences that sculpted developments leading to the public…
Discrete choice experiments are increasingly used to assess preferences for vaccines and vaccine service delivery. We conducted a systematic review of six electronic databases. Included studies were discrete choice experiments and conjoint analyses published from 2000 to 2016 related to childhood/adolescent vaccines where respondents were parents, children/adolescents, or service…
In pharmaceutical clinical trials, industrial sponsors pay for study drugs and related healthcare services. We conducted a study to determine industry’s economic contribution of these trials to the Alberta healthcare system.
Cost is a critical element in almost all public or private decisions regarding health care and human services. While cost as “opportunity cost” is straightforward on a conceptual level, making the concept operational, quantifying costs and integrating such information into decision analysis is a continuing challenge. An IHE conference, “On the State of the Art…