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  • Title: The strategy, cost, and progress of primary health care.
    Author: Boland RG, Young ME.
    Journal: Bull Pan Am Health Organ; 1982; 16(3):233-41. PubMed ID: 7171889.
    Abstract:
    Since the 1978 Alma-Alta International Conference on Primary Health Care, investments in primary health care projects throughout the world have been increasing. However, with the exception of China, no national projects have demonstrated the ability to provide longterm comprehensive primary health care in conditions of chronic proverty with local resources. Programs in China, Cuba, and Tanzania have achieved primary health care coverage for 100% of their populations. These countries have in common strong governments that have been able to implement radical changes in the health system. Individual freedoms in these societies have been restricted in favor of improved health. Programs in Nigeria, India, and Afghanistan have been less successful, although some progress has been made in projects using external funds, inspite of a strong committment by the governments. Efforts to reorganize the health care system have lacked needed political strength. Currently, these systems have resulted in less than complete coverage, without the prospect of attaining acceptable levels of infant mortality, life expectancy and net population growth. Economic, political, and cultural costs may be high as for example, national security or traditional practices are traded to achieve primary health care with 100% coverage. WHO has devised a global strategy which, when translated into operational policies will need to address several unresolved issues. These include recognizing that the goal of comprehensive primary health care may not be justified given the lack of progress to date and that effective, selective primary health care focused on nutrition, immunization, control of endemic diseases, and health education may be a more realistic goal; and that a system of international social security may be an effective means of assuring that the poorest countries are able to provide care. In addition, questions concerning continued funding of programs that can never be locally funded, the role of traditional healers in a system of free care, the supply of basic medications, the need for audit systems, realistic expectations of costs, the role of international agencies and the distribution of resources between more developed and less developed countries will need to be addressed.
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