Book Description

Citizens and Health Care: Participation and Planning for Social Change considers the citizen participation in health care planning. This book is organized into three parts encompassing 18 chapters that specifically discuss the leading policy problems, planning issues, and prospects for change of public health care. The first part deals first with the analysis of the imbalanced political arenas in which planning and participation operate. This part then explains the role of consumer participation on health planning boards in effective participation. This part also describes alternative health movements that have arisen in response to perceived social shortcomings. These movements, including holistic health care, self-care, and prevention, tend to oppose the disease orientation of scientific medicine, emphasize continuous care, make use of nonphysician practitioners, and have a serious commitment to changing life-styles. The second part describes health planning agencies that have employed innovative methods of citizen participation and the case of a health planning agency that uses community organization to ensure participation and build constituencies to overcome resistance and implement plans. This part also examines political strategies for health planning agencies. The third part introduces the so-called "public health movement", which grows from recognition of the environmental, occupational, and social causes of illness. This part also looks into the expansion of vision of social change beyond existing health policy and planning, as well as the unrealistic expectations and irreconcilable alternatives between imperfections of the bureaucracy and imperfections of the marketplace. This book is of great value to health care workers and planners and the general public.