Kahn, Mwai, Kazi, and Marseille explain how economics brings together estimates of disease burden and the costs needed to reduce that burden so that policymakers can choose which intervention strategies will maximize health gains with available resources. The authors introduce and illustrate key health economics methods, including econometrics, cost-benefit analysis, micro-costing, behavioural economics, work force projections, financing, and discrete choice experimentation.

Maina and Mwai describe the policy utility of National Health Accounts (NHA) tool for tracking health spending especially for countries aiming to achieve Universal Health Coverage. They trace the history of health resource tracking and the introduction of NHA based on the Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development’s System of Health Accounts methodology. They describe data collection for and preparation of NHA which disaggregate expenditures by four dimensions: sources of financing, financing agents, types of health-care providers and types of health-care functions.

Kenya has the world’s 4th largest HIV burden. Various strategies to control the epidemic have been implemented, including the implementation of viral load (VL) testing to monitor HIV patients on ARVs. Like many resource limited settings, Kenya’s healthcare system faces serious challenges in effectively providing quality health services to its population.

Limited non-farm opportunities in the rural areas of the developing world, coupled with population growth, means agriculture will continue to play a dominant role as a source of livelihood in these areas. Thus, while rural transformation has dominated recent literature as a way of improving welfare through diversifying into non-farm sectors, improving productivity and resilience to shocks in smallholder agricultural production cannot be  ownplayed.

This study aims to investigate the association between household wealth and nutritional status among preschool children in Tanzania. The analysis is based on a nationally representative sample of 2,120 children from the Tanzania National Panel Survey (NPS), 2012/13. Household wealth was measured by wealth index constructed using the Principal Component Analysis (PCA); whereas child stunting and underweight were used to determine the nutritional status of a child.

Earlier studies that evaluated the impact of vehicular emissions on urban air quality often reached mixed conclusions, providing little guidance to city planners seeking solutions to the ever-growing problem of air pollution. In this paper, we combine the strengths of earlier studies with hourly-level data to reexamine the causal relationship between traffic congestion and ambient air quality in Beijing. We find that around 33% to 57% of ambient air pollution in Beijing can be attributed to vehicular emissions.

In this research, we investigate whether urban rail transit expansion improves air quality. We also compare the magnitudes of the effects across cities and explain the variation. The results suggest that opening subways alleviated air pollution, especially during non-rush hours in the daytime. We find that the effects are smaller in the cities with higher income and more subway lines, while the effects are larger in the cities with higher population density. Furthermore, the effect of the first subway line opening is stronger, compared to expansion of an existing subway system.