Health Policy, Management, and Economics

Abstract

The concept of health policy is of relatively recent date, with notable exceptions, such as the establishment by Bismarck in the latter half of the nineteenth century of sick funds for workers in Germany, and Chadwick’s sanitary reforms in the United Kingdom. Until recently, health was considered to be an individual matter and health care a personal transaction between doctor or nurse and patient. In the course of the twentieth century it became evident that many environmental, economic, social, cultural, and educational factors affect the health of individuals and communities and that these, as well as ethical factors, influence the delivery of health care. Increasing awareness by people of the potential effectiveness of government action in improving their health made such action politically popular. For these reasons health policy has become an accepted concept in the contemporary world no less than economic or social policy, and the formulation of health policy a normal function of government.