The Handbook of Health Services Research is a reference for all aspects of the field of health services and outcomes research. It addresses the increasing need for comprehensive, yet balanced, information in a field that welcomes various disciplines: medicine, public health, statistics, economics, management, policy, and information technology. This well-organized reference is an indispensable source of information for everyone who seeks to develop understanding of health systems and to learn about historical, political, and socioeconomic factors that influence health policies at the global, national, regional and local level. Specifically, the Handbook helps readers: Recognize core concepts of health services and outcomes research, such as, need, access, equity, quality and safety; Become familiar with social, political, organizational, behavioral and economic theories that have influenced health systems designs; Learn about frameworks developed for evaluating the organization, financing, delivery, utilization and outcomes of health services; Get an introduction to methods of comparative effectiveness research, program evaluation, health technology assessment and health economics; Identify types and sources of data appropriate for generating valid and reliable information about the delivery of health services; Learn about strengths and weaknesses of various research designs used to study health services and policy issues. The online version of the Handbook of Health Services Research is in the format of a dynamically updated knowledge base, offering search tools, cross-referencing across chapters and linking to supplement data, other major reference works and external articles. The Handbook of Health Services Research is accessible at the level of graduate students even if it is not their focus area. This includes students with various backgrounds: medicine, public health, statistics, economics, management or information technology.