What are PHC ?
PHC “Primary health center, Primary health care” is an overall approach which encompasses the three aspects of: multisectoral policy and action to address the broader determinants of health; empowering individuals, families and communities; and meeting people’s essential health needs throughout their lives. “Primary care” is a subset of PHC and refers to essential, first-contact care provided in a community setting.
Overview
The world has committed to making health for all a reality. Primary health care is one of the best tools we have for achieving that goal. Through the Declaration of Astana, countries have reaffirmed the importance of PHC. We risk, however, that global consensus becoming nothing more than a pipe dream unless countries can turn the four commitments into action on the ground.
In recent decades, PHC has been neglected in many countries in favor of a disease-specific approach. This is often due to a combination of lack of political will, under investment, and common misperceptions of the role and benefits of PHC. There are a number of economic arguments in favor of increasing investment in PHC. It has been proven that health systems with a PHC-based foundation result in improved clinical outcomes, increased efficiency, better quality of care and enhanced patient satisfaction.
PHC also goes beyond providing health care services to individuals. It is a whole-of-society approach that seeks to address the broader determinants of health, such as community-level disease-prevention efforts, and to empower individuals, families and communities to get involved in their own health.
Moving Toward PHC
Primary health care is important because it is the foundation of a strong health system. It leads to more equitable health across the community and leads to greater patient and health worker satisfaction.
Taking a PHC approach is about meeting the majority of people’s health needs through services provided directly in the community where they live. A PHC approach means working with multidisciplinary teams – doctors, nurses, caregivers, therapists, and others – to treat the person rather than the disease.
By providing health care services throughout a person’s life, PHC allows people to develop long-term partnerships with their care providers. And it means that health care providers can address not only treatment needs, but also prevention, health promotion, rehabilitation and palliation services.
What are health Promotions
Health promotion enables people to increase control over their own health. It covers a wide range of social and environmental interventions that are designed to benefit and protect individual people’s health and quality of life by addressing and preventing the root causes of ill health, not just focusing on treatment and cure. There are 3 key elements of health promotion:
- Good governance for health
- Health literacy
- Healthy cities
Health promotion requires policy makers across all government departments to make health a central line of government policy. This means they must factor health implications into all the decisions they take, and prioritize policies that prevent people from becoming ill and protect them from injuries.
These policies must be supported by regulations that match private sector incentives with public health goals. For example, by aligning tax policies on unhealthy or harmful products such as alcohol, tobacco, and food products which are high in salt, sugars and fat with measures to boost trade in other areas. And through legislation that supports healthy urbanization by creating walkable cities, reducing air and water pollution, enforcing the wearing of seat belts and helmets.
People need to acquire the knowledge, skills and information to make healthy choices, for example about the food they eat and healthcare services that they need. They need to have opportunities to make those choices. And they need to be assured of an environment in which people can demand further policy actions to further improve their health.
Cities have a key role to play in promoting good health. Strong leadership and commitment at the municipal level is essential to healthy urban planning and to build up preventive measures in communities and primary health care facilities. From healthy cities evolve healthy countries and, ultimately, a healthier world.