{"title":"Is primary care the wave of the future?","authors":"Stephen C. Joseph, Sharon Stanton Russsell","doi":"10.1016/0160-7995(80)90033-7","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>In the current debate over how to utilize most effectively and efficiently resources to improve the health of populations in developing countries, the usual approach by those who would argue for heavy investment in Primary Health Care (PHC) is to compare and contrast the cost-effectiveness and cost-benefits of PHC versus alternative approaches. While this paper touches upon the relative merits of PHC in contrast to alternative approaches, it focuses more centrally on the need to move from thinking about these as if they were mutually exclusive alternatives, and toward greater attention to the proper balance among these alternatives. The debate over the investment in PHC as “the wave of the future” is, or ought to be, a debate concerning mix, timing, and emphasis. The paper also argues for expanding the realm of inquiry to include issues of sociopolitical motivation—factors which have too long been neglected in more purely technical approaches to the topic. Finally, the paper seeks to identify and explore resource requirements for and constraints to global expansion of PHC over the next 20 years and proposes specific principles to guide development of PHC strategies.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":76948,"journal":{"name":"Social science & medicine. Medical economics","volume":"14 2","pages":"Pages 137-144"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"1980-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1016/0160-7995(80)90033-7","citationCount":"5","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Social science & medicine. Medical economics","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0160799580900337","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 5
Abstract
In the current debate over how to utilize most effectively and efficiently resources to improve the health of populations in developing countries, the usual approach by those who would argue for heavy investment in Primary Health Care (PHC) is to compare and contrast the cost-effectiveness and cost-benefits of PHC versus alternative approaches. While this paper touches upon the relative merits of PHC in contrast to alternative approaches, it focuses more centrally on the need to move from thinking about these as if they were mutually exclusive alternatives, and toward greater attention to the proper balance among these alternatives. The debate over the investment in PHC as “the wave of the future” is, or ought to be, a debate concerning mix, timing, and emphasis. The paper also argues for expanding the realm of inquiry to include issues of sociopolitical motivation—factors which have too long been neglected in more purely technical approaches to the topic. Finally, the paper seeks to identify and explore resource requirements for and constraints to global expansion of PHC over the next 20 years and proposes specific principles to guide development of PHC strategies.