How do changing healthcare systems affect access and utilization, health outcomes and satisfaction?
Organizer: Jürgen Kohl, Heidelberg University, Germany, Juergen.kohl@soziologie.uni-heidelberg.de and Claus Wendt, University of Mannheim, Germany, claus.wendt@mzes.uni-mannheim.de Healthcare systems experience rapid changes. In OECD countries, cost containment has become a major issue and, with the purported aim to increase efficiency, in many healthcare systems market mechanisms have been implemented. In other world regions, countries still focus on the improvement of coverage and access. The comparative analysis of healthcare systems has made considerable progress in recent years, and we have gained a better understanding of modes of governance and institutional structures in the field of healthcare across countries. What is still missing, however, are studies focusing on the consequences of changing institutional structures of healthcare systems regarding inequalities, exclusion and, more generally, the living conditions associated with health. We therefore invite papers analysing
