Introduction of “health for all”

Introduction of “health for all”:

By the mid‐1970s international health agencies and experts began to examine alternative approaches to health improvement in developing countries.

The impressive health gains in China as a result of its community‐based health programs and similar approaches elsewhere stood in contrast to the poor results of disease‐ focused programs.

Soon this bottom‐up approach that emphasized prevention and managed health problems in their social contexts emerged as an attractive alternative to the top‐down, high‐tech approach and raised optimism about the feasibility of tackling inequity to improve global health.

Thus, “health for all” was introduced to global health planners and practitioners by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) at the International Conference on Primary Health Care in Alma Ata, Kazakhstan, in 1978.

The declaration was intended to revolutionize and reform previous health policies and plans used in developing countries, and it reaffirmed WHO’s definition of health in 1946: “a state of complete physical, mental, and social well being, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.”

The conference declared that health is a fundamental human right and that attainment of the highest possible level of health was an important worldwide social goal.

To achieve the goal of health for all, global health agencies pledged to work toward meeting people’s basic health needs through a comprehensive approach called primary health care.

Primary health care as envisioned at Alma Ata had strong sociopolitical implications. It explicitly outlined a strategy that would respond more equitably, appropriately, and effectively to basic health needs and also address the underlying social, economic, and political causes of poor health.

It was to be underpinned by universal accessibility and coverage on the basis of need, with emphasis on disease prevention and health promotion, community participation, self‐reliance, and intersectoral collaboration.

It acknowledged that poverty, social unrest and instability, the environment, and lack of basic resources contribute to poor health status.

It outlined eight elements that future interventions would use to fulfill the goal of health improvement: education concerning prevailing health problems and methods of preventing and controlling them; promotion of food supply and proper nutrition; an adequate supply of safe water and basic sanitation; maternal and child health care,including family planning; immunization against major infectious diseases; prevention and control of locally endemic diseases; appropriate treatment of common diseases and injuries; and provision of essential drugs.