Background: Health insurance systems are a core component of social protection, aimed at safeguarding populations from financial risks, ensuring equitable access to health care services, and ultimately achieving universal health coverage. In recent years, Mongolia’s health insurance system has faced significant policy-level challenges related to efficiency, accessibility, and financial sustainability. Therefore, there is a growing need to conduct comparative analyses of internationally successful health insurance models. Aim: To comparatively examine Mongolia’s health insurance system in relation to the health insurance systems of selected countries. Materials and Methods: A comparative document review methodology was employed to analyze the health insurance and health financing systems of Canada, Germany, Japan, the Republic of Korea, and Kyrgyzstan. The analysis was based on policy documents, legal and regulatory frameworks, reports from international organizations, and relevant statistical data. Result: In countries such as Canada, Germany, Japan, and the Republic of Korea, health expenditure as a share of GDP exceeds the global average, while out-of-pocket payments by households remain relatively low. In contrast, Mongolia and Kyrgyzstan exhibit high levels of out-of-pocket expenditure, weaker financial protection, and comparatively lower performance indicators of the health system. Conclusion The findings suggest that increasing health expenditure as a share of GDP toward the global average, improving the management of health insurance funds, and reducing out-of-pocket payments by households are important considerations for enhancing the performance of Mongolia’s health system.

Background: Patients with rheumatoid arthritis are at increased risk of developing cardiovascular disease. In Mongolia, the registration of inflammatory diseases is increasing every year, and cardiovascular diseases are the leading cause of death. Aim: We aimed to determine the degree of cardiovascular risk and its correlation in people with rheumatoid arthritis. Materials and Methods: The study was conducted in a cross-sectional study design with 64 patients with rheumatoid arthritis between May and November 2024. Cardiovascular risk was assessed using mSCORE and the World Health Organization (WHO) cardiovascular Risk Table. We received ethical approval to begin the research at the MNUMS meeting on May 17, 2024 (No. 2024/3-05). Results: The average age of the participants was 55.2±9.7 years, and the average duration since being diagnosed with RA was 9.8±8.0 years. Among the participants, 82.8% (n=53) were female, and 17.2% (n=11) were male. The mean WHO risk index was 10.25±11, while the mean mSCORE risk index was 2.9±4 (p=0.001). There was a significant difference in mSCORE scores between the 40-55 and 56-65 age groups (p<0.001). In contrast, the mSCORE risk assessment showed that 15.6% (n=10) had high risk, and 6.3% (n=4) had very high risk. Among the parameters of inflammatory biomarkers, CRP (OR=0.05, r=0.35, 95% CI 0.9-3.2, p=0.004) has a statistically significant difference and positive correlation, and HDL-C (OR=2.3, r=-0.25, 95% CI 2.9- 10.0, p<0.0001) was significantly different and negatively correlated. Conclusion A total of 64 participants participated in our study, and according to the WHO assessment, 17.2% were at high or very high risk of developing cardiovascular disease in the next 10 years, and according to the mSCORE, 21.9% were at high or very high risk of developing cardiovascular disease. Although the degree of disease activity was not significantly associated with cardiovascular risk, the inflammatory biomarker C-reactive protein was statistically significantly different or positively associated with cardiovascular risk assessment.

WHO informed that across world an average of 565 young people aged 10 to 29 die every day through interpersonal violence. Some studies mentioned that anxiety was most frequently occurred as one of the psychological consequences among victims of child abuse. Recent research on effects of adverse early life experiences on central nervous system as stress systems (hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis-HPA) has provided a greater understanding of the link between childhood abuse and susceptibility to anxiety disorder. Therefore, this research was done to study anxiety among abused adolescents, some physical parameters and level of cortisol in saliva. There were selected 20 abused children and 40 non abused children aged between 11-16 years old and lived in Ulaanbaatar city. The Spence Children’s Anxiety Scale (SCAS; Spence, 1997) is a 38-item self-report questionnaire that assesses multiple symptoms of childhood anxiety disorders based on current diagnostic criteria. All participants were measured the cortisol in the saliva by Cortisol ELISA kit, Sigma, Average age of all subjects in the study was 13.52±1.57 and 59% of them were female and 41% were male. All anxiety symptoms of case group was statistically significance higher (p<0.01) than control group. The average amount of salivary cortisol of case group was (18.65±7.08) statistically significantly lower (p<0.01) than average amount of control group (32.15±20.99). Anxiety was more frequently occurred among abused children and blunted cortisol responses might indicate a level of impaired HPA functioning that could constitute a vulnerability to psychopathology with exposure to anxiety.

WHO informed that across world an average of 565 young people aged 10 to 29 die every day through interpersonal violence. Some studies mentioned that anxiety was most frequently occurred as one of the psychological consequences among victims of child abuse. Recent research on effects of adverse early life experiences on central nervous system as stress systems (hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis-HPA) has provided a greater understanding of the link between childhood abuse and susceptibility to anxiety disorder. Therefore, this research was done to study anxiety among abused adolescents, some physical parameters and level of cortisol in saliva.There were selected 20 abused children and 40 non abused children aged between 11-16 years old and lived in Ulaanbaatar city. The Spence Children’s Anxiety Scale (SCAS; Spence, 1997) is a 38-item self-report questionnaire that assesses multiple symptoms of childhood anxiety disorders based on current diagnostic criteria. All participants were measured the cortisol in the saliva by Cortisol ELISA kit, Sigma, Average age of all subjects in the study was 13.52±1.57 and 59% of them were female and 41% were male. All anxiety symptoms of case group was statistically significance higher (p<0.01) than control group. The average amount of salivary cortisol of case group was (18.65±7.08) statistically significantly lower (p<0.01) than average amount of control group (32.15±20.99).Anxiety was more frequently occurred among abused children and blunted cortisol responses might indicate a level of impaired HPA functioning that could constitute a vulnerability to psychopathology with exposure to anxiety.

Introduction. Stigma and discrimination against patients with mental illness is very common amongst the society. Therefore, this study aims to study the knowledge and understanding of mental illness and attitudes to patient with mental illness, among the general population.Goal. To assess the knowledge and understanding of mental illness and attitude to patient with mental illness among population of Ulaanbaatar city and compare its results with a similar research in carried out in 2002.Methods. The study was conducted in Ulaanbaatar city from February to April, 2008 and included 991 people aged over 18 years. The sample was selected from 30 micro districts of Ulaanbaatar city, The method of sampling was using primary dot in first step, sampling households in mid step and selecting people by using method of Sweden key from household in final step. The study used 30 item standardized questionnaires. Also there were 2 extra cards to read for respondents.Result. Among the respondents, 45% were males and 55 % females. Average age was 37 years. In view of identifying negative attitude of patient with schizophrenia, majority of respondents answered as “loony person” (n=136) and “mad person” (n=83). Conclusion. Although there was stigma amongst the study population, 66% of subjects who were involved in study could give right diagnosis in non professional level and were able to identify symptoms of mental illness suggesting that more than half of the sample studied had some knowledge of mental illness.