The objective of this study is to examine the effects of income poverty and beliefs about HIV-AIDS transmission on the gap in HIV-AIDS testing among women between rural and urban areas in Cameroon. The analysis is based on a sample of 7,464 women from the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS 5) of Cameroon (NIS, 2015). Based on the literature on the demand for preventive health care, econometric results obtained using a decomposing differencesmodel based on Yun method, reveal that the HIV-AIDS screening rate of women living in rural areas is lower than that of women living in urban areas. Improvements in the level of economic well-being, demonstrated knowledge about HIV-AIDS, and education levels of rural women are likely to reduce this gap. On the other hand, having a child, knowing where to get tested for HIV-AIDS, or being an elderly person does no help reduce this gap.

At a time when patient empowerment is being talked about as a major trend, diagnostic self-tests might seem like a good option for both the population and healthcare institutions seeking to influence health policies. Such tests enable individuals to assess their own medical condition in an autonomous way, and they could also help control healthcare budgets by providing earlier diagnoses. In France, the market for self-tests has recently expanded with a battery of new tests available for a variety of health conditions. However, these tests are still at an early stage of adoption and have stirred controversy in the medical community with regard to the usability of the information delivered to patients. The present study’s objective is to explore whether the general population between 30 and 50 years of age is ready to adopt these self-tests. A qualitative study using semi-structured interviews was conducted to investigate the thinking of 22 participants living in or around Paris with regard to medical self-testing in general and the latest types of self-tests in particular.
 The study’s findings highlight the participants’ low awareness of self-tests and their double-edged attitude toward them. The results suggest there is a discrepancy between patients’ stated willingness to emancipate themselves from medical professionals and their level of dependency when it comes to receiving a diagnosis. This finding calls patients’ willingness to be empowered into question and emphasizes a strong need for guidance by the medical community.

People care about relative position and are willing to engage resources to be above others or at least not below them. Nevertheless, the scarce existing evidence suggests that health is a less positional good: people prefer to be healthy even if others are healthier than them. Unlike previous literature, we use a survey-based study to explore the positionality of several health-related dimensions (e.g., health care reimbursement, cosmetic surgery) in a Choice versus Happiness condition. We find that agents exhibit mainly egalitarian preferences, namely they take into account others' situations but prefer everybody to receive the same amount of health attributes. Moreover, when health attributes are related to physical appearance, agents express significantly higher levels of positional preferences. We draw several policy implications from these egalitarian preferences.

Objective: Our aim was to evaluate community consumption of strong prescription opioid treatments in France in 2015 and 2017.Methods: A nation-wide French health care insurance claims database was analyzed for opioids average annual cost, annual prevalence of dispensations and users by mean of two repeated retrospective cross sectional study in 2015 and 2017.Results: In 2015–2017 prevalence of users per 100 000 beneficiaries per year rose from 878 to 932 (+6%) for strong opioid analgesics and lowered from 160 to 150 (-6%) for opiate substitution treatments. Prevalence of users of oxycodone, fentanyl, morphine, hydromorphone, buprenorphine, and methadone shifted by +17%, -5%, +4%, -8%, -13%, and +10%, respectively (+20% for methadone capsules). Oxycodone moved from third place to first place in terms of number of dispensation. Highest prevalence were in the western half of France, age over 60 and female for strong analgesic opioids and the north-east quarter and the south-west quarter of France, age 30 to 49 and male for opiate substitution treatments. The factor most strongly associated with prevalencewas age in strong analgesic opioids and gender in opiate substitution treatments.Conclusions: In 2 years the use of analgesics progresses, especially for oxycodone, while that of the substitution drugs decreases. Despite its greater danger, methadone tends to replace buprenorphine and capsule form tends to replace the syrup. Regulatory changes or enhanced controls may have played a role. The age of strong analgesic opioids consumers highlights the issue of severe pain in the elderly.