This case study examines country-level primary health care (PHC) systems in Singapore in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic between January 2020 and December 2022. The case study is part of a collection of case studies providing critical insights into key PHC strengths, challenges and lessons learned using the Astana PHC framework, which considers integrated health services, multisectoral policy and action, and people and communities. Led by in-country research teams, the case studies update and extend the Primary Health Care Systems (PRIMASYS) case studies commissioned by the Alliance in 2015.

This book is a Catalog for Kim Taeksang's Paintings with a text by Kai Hong, a Critic. Kim is an exemplary painter of Daamhua Painting, newly emerging from Korea, ostensibly paving a way for a New Spiritual in Art. A group of Korean artists, including Kim here, are renewing what Kandinsky hoped to do but failed.

Recently, there has been a move towards K-8 schools as opposed to separate elementary and middle schools, especially among urban districts. In this paper, we examine the effect of enrollment in separate elementary and middle schools relative to enrollment in a K-8 school using longitudinal data from an anonymous district in the United States. The choice to enroll in a K-8 or separate elementary and middle schools is potentially endogenous. While previous research has taken steps to address the possible endogeneity when estimating the effects for separate middle schools, previous research has not addressed the possible endogeneity when examining the effect at the elementary level. Without generating an unbiased estimate during the elementary grades, we cannot fully understand the impact of policies that have shifted the grade arrangement of separate elementary and middle schools to K-8 schools. In this paper, we employ a research design that leverages the fact that the anonymous district closed several schools and rezoned their students to other schools with new boundaries. We compare students on the side of the new boundaries who are assigned to a separate middle or elementary school to students on the other side of the new boundaries who are assigned to a K-8 school. When taking into the consideration the effect at the elementary level, our results are much less supportive of a K-8 policy than previous research.

Prior research suggests that high quality prekindergarten (pre-K) programs can promote school readiness and generate lifetime benefits for children. However, very little is known about how pre-K programs affect other family members. In this study, I examine the effects of the New York City pre-K program on the health of low-income mothers, their healthcare utilization, fertility, and well-being, by linking Medicaid data to 2014 program participants, the year the universal pre-K program was launched in NYC. I use a difference-in-regression-discontinuities design that exploits both the introduction of universal pre-K and the birthdate cutoff for enrollment, in order to address potential bias from the steep development trajectory found in even small age ranges in early childhood, as well as potential preexisting confounding policies that use the same age cutoff to determine eligibility. I find no significant effects from having a child who was born just inside the eligibility cutoff, versus a child who was born just outside the eligibility cutoff, except a small negative effect on the likelihood of prescriptions for those without younger children. In addition, I extend the regression discontinuity design extrapolation methods, based on local derivatives and matching on observables, to the difference-in-regression-discontinuities framework, in order to estimate the average effects on the entire pre-K and non-pre-K population, a year on either side of the cutoff date. The extrapolation results differ little from those at the cutoff. Additional extrapolations done in small age ranges indicate that the effects of universal pre-K on mothers are heterogeneous by children's date of birth.

There is increasing concern about risky behaviors and poor mental health among school-aged youth. A critical factor in youth well-being is school attendance. This study evaluates how school organization and structure affect health outcomes by examining the impacts of a popular urban high school reform -- “small schools” -- on youth risky behaviors and mental health, using data from New York City. To estimate a causal estimate of attending small versus large high schools, we use a two-sample-instrumental-variable approach with the distance between student residence and school as the instrument for school enrollment. We consider two types of small schools - “old small schools,” which opened prior to a system-wide 2003 reform aimed at increasing educational achievement and “new small schools,” which opened in the wake of that reform. We find that girls enrolled in older small schools are less likely to become pregnant, and boys are less likely to be diagnosed with mental health disorders than their counterparts in large schools. Both girls and boys enrolled in more recently opened small schools, however, are more likely to be diagnosed with violence-associated injuries and (for girls only) with mental health disorders. These disparate results suggest that improving a school's organization and inputs together is likely more effective in addressing youth risky behaviors than simply reducing school size.