BACKGROUND Primary health care is recognised as an integral part of a country's health care system. Measuring hospitalisations, that could potentially be avoided with high quality and accessible primary care, is one indicator of how well primary care services are performing. This review was interested in the association between chronic disease related hospitalisations and primary health care re...

1 An earlier version of this paper was prepared for the National Workshop on Women and Primary Health Care, which was held in February 2004 and was sponsored by Women and Health Care Reform (formerly the National Coordinating Group on Health Care Reform and Women), funded by Health Canada, and organized by Women and Health Care Reform and the Prairie Women’s Health Centre of Excellence in Winni...

OBJECTIVE To critically review the advantages and disadvantages of selective versus comprehensive Primary Health Care (PHC) approaches as a strategy towards improving health in the developing world. DATA SOURCES Review of literature on PHC. DATA SELECTION Relevant papers from western and developing world literature. DATA EXTRACTION Search of Pub-Med, WHO/UNICEF reports, and relevant publi...

background: social issues have prominent effects on the peoples' physical and mental health and on the health risk factors. in iran, many organizations provide social care services to their target population. this study aimed to explore the roles and functions of primary health care (phc) system in providing social care services in iran.   methods: this was a qualitative study, for which data w...

BACKGROUND Following independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, Estonia introduced a national insurance system, consolidated the number of health care providers, and introduced family medicine centred primary health care (PHC) to strengthen the health system. METHODS Using routinely collected health billing records for 2005-2012, we examine health system utilisation for seven ambulatory care...

Sexual health and reproductive health are relatively new concepts in Europe. They were introduced and recommended during and after the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in Cairo, 1994. At the ICPD a 20-year Programme of Action was adopted by the vast majority of world states. This article is an edited version of the European Forum for Primary Care (EFPC) position pap...

INTRODUCTION China has pioneered advances in primary health care (PHC) and public health for a large and diverse population. To date, the current state of PHC in China has not been subjected to systematic assessments. Understanding variations in primary care services could generate opportunities for improving the structure and function of PHC. METHODS AND ANALYSIS This paper describes a natio...

Background: Social issues have prominent effects on the peoples' physical and mental health and on the health risk factors. In Iran, many organizations provide social care services to their target population. This study aimed to explore the roles and functions of Primary Health Care (PHC) system in providing social care services in Iran.   Methods: This was a qualitative study, for whic...

BACKGROUND Health reform in China since 2009 has emphasized basic public health services to enhance the function of Community Health Services as a primary health care facility. A variety of studies have documented these efforts, and the challenges these have faced, yet up to now the experience of primary health care (PHC) providers in terms of how they have coped with these changes remains unde...

BACKGROUND The WHO's mental health Gap Action Programme seeks to narrow the treatment gap for mental disorders by advocating integration of mental health into primary health care (PHC). This study aimed to assess the challenges and opportunities of this approach from the perspective of PHC workers in a sub-Saharan African country. METHODS A facility-based cross-sectional survey of 151 PHC wor...