Unsettling Healthcare is an initiative for social and political science enquiry on emergent trends in the global healthcare economy. Partners include researchers, health activists and policy makers interested in promoting equity and inclusion in healthcare systems. Based at King’s College London Department of International Development and University of Sussex Department of International Development, we aim to critically examine the changing profile of healthcare financing, provision and consumption, with a particular emphasis on the challenges faced in middle-income countries.
Projects
Brokerage
Intermediaries are increasingly influential mediators in the process of accessing healthcare, with important implications for the forms of care that users seek and receive. This research examines their growing role in healthcare systems.
Corporatisation and regulation
Corporatisation and Regulation in the Private Healthcare Sector in India (CRiPS) is concerned with the expansion and changing face of private sector hospital care and related diagnostic services through an organised, and increasingly transnational, healthcare industry.
Private investment
The healthcare sector presents significant opportunities for private sources of finance and significant investment is now being channelled into the rapid growth of corporate healthcare chains, particularly in emerging economy countries. We consider the scale and form of the investments being made, and the implications for incentives and equity in healthcare systems.
Real estate
A plethora of plans for “medicities” or “health cities” in different Indian states were announced in the press media in the period from 2007 onwards. They were to provide large scale “one-stop-shops” of super-speciality medical services supplemented by diagnostics and other aspects of healthcare and lifestyle consumption. We examine these imagined healthcare places, and the political economy of their development.
The global healthcare economy
Here we analyse the emergence and evolution of global healthcare markets. Healthcare is increasingly seen as sector that can deliver significant financial returns on investment, particularly through international trade in health-related services. As a result some governments are actively promoting healthcare as a strategy for national economic development. We study the social change and tensions that accompany this immersion in global markets.
Vouchers and cash transfers
Voucher and cash transfers are expected to promote health by offsetting some associated financial costs or by increasing household income or providing financial incentives to increase healthy behaviours. We examine the design and effects of these policy initiatives to determine their role in creating and promoting healthcare markets, and the implications for equity.
