Barrio Adentro y Alma Ata

Return to Alma-Ata.

The ambition, which launched the health for all movement, was bold. It assumed that enlightened policy could raise the level of health in deprived populations and thus drive overall development. The declaration broadened the medical model to include social and economic factors, and acknowledged that activities in many sectors, including civil society organizations, shaped the prospects for impr...

Alma-Ata and Primary Health Care: An Evolving Story

The story of how Alma-Ata and Primary Health Care gained the attention of the world’s health leadership must be seen as one of the most intriguing in the history of health and development. The postcolonial years in the developing world saw health care that was largely hospital-based and curative in its orientation, whichmeant, of course, that most people who needed health care had little or no ...

'Health for All' Alma-Ata Declaration--an elusive Holy Grail.

Learning from Alma Ata: the medical home and comprehensive primary health care.

The patient-centered medical home (PCMH) recently has received much attention in health systems literature. The PCMH holds considerable promise for improving health outcomes and re-establishing a role for family medicine in a fragmented health care system. Despite its philosophical approach to comprehensive health care reform, the PCMH fails to offer concrete recommendations to address the soci...

Primary health care and England: the coming of age of Alma Ata?

The Alma Ata Declaration is now 28 years old. This article uses its framework to assess the changes that have occurred in recent years in the English health system. It summarises the health reform changes that have occurred internationally and those in the English health system in two eras, pre- and post-1997 - when the Labour Party came to power. It concludes that linked forces of managerialis...