The Benefits Of Primary Health Care

Today, there is a prolonging problem with primary health care in low-income urban populations. As a group low-income people suffer from having meager health outcomes than the larger population of those with less dense area of living and as well higher incomes. Low-income people suffer disproportionately from health problems related to physical inactivity. People from households with incomes below $15,000 are much more likely to be diagnosed with diabetes or asthma, to be obese, and to be at risk for health problems related to lack of exercise than people from households with incomes above $50,000. Socioeconomic conditions commonly confronted by low-income people such as polluted environments, inadequate housing, absence of public transportation,

Most Americans live in the 324 metropolitan areas of the United States. Even for the 50% of the population who live in the suburbs, problems of the central cities are increasingly common, and some pockets of urban decay have moved outward (Leviton, L. C., Snell, E., & McGinnis, M., 2000 p. 363). In regards to why primary-care setting offers important opportunities for health promotion to low-income urban populations, health promotion professionals choose to focus on inner-city neighborhoods, which are characterized by concentrations of poor, often minority people, deindustrialization, and relative isolation (Leviton, L. C., Snell, E., & McGinnis, M., 2000 p. 366). Primary health care has a lot of strengths especially as it practices a comprehensive patient-centered approach, and it has, at least in Western Europe, a strong historical development building on a variety of traditions. Since the 1990s it has developed a switch from ‘experienced based medicine’ toward ‘evidence based medicine’, underpinning guidelines and protocols. A challenge is how to reconcile an evidence

In Thailand, in the 1990s, the government was convinced that change in the healthcare system was needed and primary health care was at the forefront of that change. The aims were threefold: to increase equity, improve quality and give a human dimension to health care. Physicians moved outside the hospital setting and there was a shift from the ‘specialist in the hospital’ to the ‘family practitioner in the community’. Capacity problems were addressed via an intensive training and support program. Today, family medicine, embedded in primary health care, belongs to the Thai health vocabulary and committed family practices give substance to the concept and function as demonstration and training centers. Health policy explicitly links universal coverage, first-line health service strengthening and family medicine development. Family medicine has seen an academic breakthrough and is now recognized as a specialty in its own right. The Ministry of Public Health views family practice as having the potential to transform healthcare delivery in Thailand in order to bring a new style of relating to patients along with a renewed understanding of the process of health and illness, and a new emphasis on illness prevention and coordination of care. They hope family practice will lead to improved access to care, increased emphasis on prevention at the community level and reduce the cost of care (Maeseneer, J. D.,