Comparing Healthcare Systems

1) Our environment can negatively affect our health in many ways. Choose an environmental health issue from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention National Center for Environmental Health (http://www.cdc.gov/nceh/ehhe/). Briefly describe the problem and the negative health effects it creates.

What programs are available in your community to address the chosen environmental health problem? How can this environmental issue in your community spread and cause potential problems on a global scale?

2) Do you think that quality would be adversely impacted if the growth in medical technology were to be constrained in the United States? If costs are reduced, and more people could have access, do you think that this is a reasonable trade-off?

3)

i) How does the other country’s system work and how is it funded? Do the funding mechanisms work well in your view? (You might want to look at taxation rates.) Have there been implications to the country’s wider economy as a result of the cost of the system? Are they positive or negative?

ii) What is the ratio of physicians to the population, and how are they compensated? At what levels?

iii) What, if any, delivery shortcomings are experienced?

IV) How is technology distributed? Is the emphasis of the system on preventive care or acute care?

V) How do the cultural aspects of this society play into health care outcomes?

VI) How does this nation’s health care system compare against that of the U.S., in terms of cost, services, technology, and health outcomes?

The  country in question is Germany for the 3rd question