In November, 1945, the Regents authorized the establishment of a Bureau of Public Health Economics under the direction of Nathan Sinai(D.V.M. San Francisco College '15,M.S.P.H. Michigan '24, Dr. P. H. ibid.'26), who came to the University as Instructor in Hygiene and Public Health in 1924 and became Professor of Hygiene and Public Health in 1932. While primarily a teaching unit providing instruction for those who are concerned with problems of medical care, this Bureau has carried on extensive studies in widely separated areas. Noteworthy are the research activities centered in the voluntary health insurance plan which provides comprehensive physicians' services in Essex County andWindsor, Ontario.
This plan is sponsored by the local medical society, which furnishes care for 130,000 subscribers. Principal interest has centered in a study of the utilization of services by subscribers in a situation in which the unique barrier to the receipt of physicians' care has been removed. Administrative and statistical control of techniques as applied to this fee-for-service plan has been objectively studied, together with other details of this distinctive voluntary health insurance service. The Bureau has also conducted extensive surveys of the program for senior citizens of the state ofWashington, of medical care programs employed by industry in Hawaii, and of many medical and hospital programs in Michigan and nearby states. Dr. Sinai has designed a health audit or evaluation schedule for the health services conducted by the World Health Organization, applicable to all projects of this organization throughout the world.
The Bureau, since 1944, has published a digest which serves as a teaching medium and which through its wide circulation keeps public health and medical and allied personnel acquainted with programs dealing with health economics as they develop. As an indication of the importance given to the synthesis of the health and social sciences, the staff includes members whose present the fields of social psychology and sociology.
(Encyclopedic Survey, Vol. 4, p. 1533)
