Alma-Ata 30 years on: revolutionary, relevant, and time to revitalise

Revisiting the ability of Australian primary healthcare services to respond to health inequity

“…CPHC is inherently political and contested, without clear agreement on scope and nature of service (Baum, 2008). The move away from CPHC in South Australia is a local expression of a national and global struggle between selective and comprehensive PHC Lawn et al, 2008).…”

Strengthening Community Participation in Primary Health Care: Experiences from South Africa

“…Politicians view global health and social inequalities as a global security threat (World Health Report -WHO, 2008). Furthermore, the Millennium Development Goals -in particular Goal 4, Reduce Child Mortality; Goal 5, Improve Maternal Mortality; and Goal 6, Combat HIV/AIDS, Malaria and Other Diseases -are unlikely to be achieved without signifi cant health system reform (Lawn et al, 2008;Chopra et al, 2009). Meanwhile civil society activists see a return to PHC as a potential pathway to social justice in the context of global health inequalities (McCoy et al, 2008).…”

“…In this chapter we contribute to generating debate on PHC implementation through a case study of a project that sought to focus on one aspect of the Alma-Ata Declaration that has been identifi ed as particularly poorly implemented -community participation (Lawn et al, 2008). Recognising that community participation is crucial for achieving PHC (WHO, 1978), for tackling HIV/AIDS (Campbell, 2003) and for addressing the health worker shortage (Schaay and Sanders, 2008), but acknowledging that it is incredibly diffi cult to achieve, we seek to advance understandings of barriers and opportunities to meaningful participation.…”

“…This aspect of PHC has typically been poorly implemented (Lawn et al, 2008). Yet without proper community involvement, programmes have little chance of succeeding (Campbell, 2003).…”

Participation and the Right to Health: Lessons from Indonesia

“…23 Yet both the fundamental documents and scholars discussing the right to health have emphasized aimed at local access to an "essential health care package" that would raise the national standard of living, particularly that of the rural poor who faced higher levels of social and economic exclusion. 28 Gotong royong, "mutual burden sharing," aimed to match local volunteer labor with central government transfers.…”