Heterogeneity in hepatitis C treatment prescribing and uptake in Australia: a geospatial analysis of a year of unrestricted treatment access

A Review of Models Used for Investigating Barriers to Healthcare Access in Australia

Understanding barriers to healthcare access is a multifaceted challenge, which is often highly diverse depending on location and the prevalent surroundings. The barriers can range from transport accessibility to socio-economic conditions, ethnicity and various patient characteristics. Australia has one of the best healthcare systems in the world; however, there are several concerns surrounding its accessibility, primarily due to the vast geographical area it encompasses. This review study is an attempt to understand the various modeling approaches used by researchers to analyze diverse barriers related to specific disease types and the various areal distributions in the country. In terms of barriers, the most affected people are those living in rural and remote parts, and the situation is even worse for indigenous people. These models have mostly focused on the use of statistical models and spatial modeling. The review reveals that most of the focus has been on cancer-related studies and understanding accessibility among the rural and urban population. Future work should focus on further categorizing the population based on indigeneity, migration status and the use of advanced computational models. This article should not be considered an exhaustive review of every aspect as each section deserves a separate review of its own. However, it highlights all the key points, covered under several facets which can be used by researchers and policymakers to understand the current limitations and the steps that need to be taken to improve health accessibility.

European Association for the Study of the Liver and French hepatitis C recent guidelines: The paradigm shift

The latest Association Française pour l'Etude du Foie - French Association for Study of the Liver (AFEF) and European Association for the Study of the Liver (EASL) recommendations announce a change of paradigm, for the management of patients infected with hepatitis C virus (HCV). The AFEF recommendations focus on the elimination of HCV infection on a national level by preventing reinfection, in less than ten years. This goal involves the facilitation of patients' management in a simplified pathway by increasing screening procedures and access to pangenotypic treatments mainly in the "reservoir" population of people who inject drugs and migrants. Even in the complex pathway of patients with previous comorbidities, AFEF takes the option of a therapeutic simplification. The EASL guidelines position themselves on the state of the art with a precise description of all therapeutic options available, without separating simplified and complex pathways even if they take into account the epidemiological evolution of difficult-to-treat populations.