This paper examines what is known about administrative costs in the health care systems of the United States and several other countries. In addition to exploring the types of activities that constitute health care administration, it reviews studies that measure and compare these activities in different countries, and it explores the potential usefulness of such comparisons.

This paper reviews how the United States compares with other developed countries on available health status measures, evaluates the validity of the data used to make such comparisons, and describes how international comparisons might be interpreted in the context of health care reform.

The report reviews data concerning the contribution of genetic factors to several severe mental disorders; described methodologies used in the studies, and broached several policy issues relevant to this area of research.

This report discusses globalization in perspective, U.S. technology policy in international economic perspective, and other aspects of technological developments. The most technologically sophisticated and economically significant sectors of the U.S. economy are now characterized by high levels of international production, foreign direct investment, trade among affiliated companies, and complex forms of international financial and technological collaboration.

This report examines an array of sustainable development definitions and discusses their common elements. Current agriculture, energy, and industry technologies are described as well as the strides being made in education, communication, and information technologies that could support sustainable development.

This report is the fifth publication from OTA’S assessment on the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, examines the whole range of consequences for proliferation of the Soviet Union’s breakup.

In June 1995, OTA convened a workshop that brought together some of the world’s leading practitioners, academic experts, experienced diplomats, and leading technologists in order to study and discuss this issue. This report contains a summary of the results of the workshop, along with the original papers presented.

This report examines the question of how telecommunication related aid policies might be designed to support both United States trade and foreign aid goals.

This report assesses the state of the knowledge, identifies key future challenges in each of the three components of earthquake risk reduction—earth science, engineering, and implementation—and offers policy options to improve federal efforts.

This report takes one critical step—identifying and commenting on the available data—that may help in developing priorities for the use of limited resources to protect children from health and safety hazards in schools.

This background paper examines the complexities of innovation and commercialization in an attempt to demonstrate the linkages between science, technology, and innovation, and to highlight the growing importance of factors other than basic research in commercial success.

The purpose of this background paper is to describe the current state of development of HIV vaccines, and to discuss what is known about adverse reactions that may occur. The background paper provides an overview of ethical issues that arise in the conduct of HIV vaccine trials. The report also discusses alternatives to the current product liability system to encourage the development of HIV vaccines and to fairly compensate those who are harmed as a result of adverse reactions to the vaccine.

This report analyzes universities’, companies’, and researchers’ experiences and perspectives since enactment of federal laws to enhance technology transfer—especially as it pertains to research funded by the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Energy, the agencies funding U.S. efforts in the Human Genome Project.

This paper updates and develops some key issues that OTA had identified in its earlier report, in light of recent developments in the private sector and in government.

This report describes how analysts developed and evaluated a number of alternative configurations of technology that, combined with certain legal and institutional innovations, could greatly enhance the capability of law enforcement agencies to detect and prosecute money launders seeking to exploit U.S. financial institutions and wire transfer systems.

This report reviews the roles that analyses of control technology and regulatory impacts play in OSHA’s standard setting process, and evaluates the various methods and resources on which the agency draws in conducting these efforts. In addition, based on findings from close examinations of a number of OSHA’s past rule-makings, the report provides a critical appraisal of how well these analyses seem to be helping the agency achieve its basic occupational safety and health mission.

The analysis in this report identifies priority environmental targets across the country for water quality, wildlife, and soil quality. A tripartite set of programs designed to lower cost and achieve more enduring solutions illustrates possible approaches to the targets.

This paper describes the existing public information about osteoporosis and discusses problems that limit its usefulness, including problems in the dissemination and targeting of information to different types of people who have or are at risk of the disease. It also discusses problems that arise because of the way research findings are presented in the mass media and the widespread dissemination of information about medications that are available on the market but have not been approved by the FDA for osteoporosis.

This report examines U.S. plans for managing the prodigious quantities of data expected from current, planned, and future remote sensing satellites. In particular, it explores the Earth Observing System Data and Information System, which NASA is developing to manage and process the data from its Earth Observing System of satellites. It also analyzes the factors affecting the growth of the market for privately generated remotely sensed data.

This Background Paper summarizes OTA’s findings with regard to the three questions asked based on the workshop discussion as well as background information and discussions with various individuals before and after the workshop.

This report examines a set of environmental cost studies, compares and contrasts their methods and assumptions, and discusses how they could be made more useful to federal policy makers.

This report has four parts. The first part focuses on several factors that are necessary for substance abuse and addiction to occur, including an examination of the biological research regarding the phenomenon of addiction to a variety of substances. The second part describes individual risk and protective factors that contribute to the abuse of, and addiction to, alcohol and drugs. The third part, looks at how risk and protective factors play out in subcultures and in major activity settings (home, school, workplace, and recreation), and assesses the effectiveness of various substance abuse prevention initiatives. The fourth section, addresses a range of legislative issues and options for Congress arising from an understanding of the factors leading to substance abuse and addiction.

This paper describes briefly the work on DoD’s Kuwait Oil Fire Health Risk Assessment to date, including the results of a pilot study of health risks, and then answers the questions addressed to OTA in PL 102-585.

This paper deals with one of the most basic questions in any health research endeavor: how to measure the outcomes associated with whatever is being studied. The paper describes in greater detail some of the research techniques discussed.