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Introduction: Overview and purpose

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 December 2010

Jean-Pierre Unger ,
Pierre De Paepe ,
Kasturi Sen  and
Werner Soors
Jean-Pierre Unger
Affiliation:
Institute of Tropical Medicine Antwerp
Pierre De Paepe
Affiliation:
Institute of Tropical Medicine Antwerp
Kasturi Sen
Affiliation:
Institute of Tropical Medicine Antwerp
Werner Soors
Affiliation:
Institute of Tropical Medicine Antwerp
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Summary

Confident in the infinity of time, a certain conception of history discerns only the rhythm, faster or slower, at which men and times move along the path of progress.

Walter Benjamin, 1915. La vie des étudiants. In: W. Benjamin, Œuvres I, Folio Essais, Editions Gallimard, 2000, p. 125.

Plato was the first to discern between those who know without acting and those who act without knowing while in the past, action was divided in enterprise and achievement: the result was that the knowledge of action to accomplish and its implementation became two radically different concepts.

H. Arendt. Condition de l'homme moderne. Calmann Levy Ed., Paris, 1983, p. 286.

After 15 years of neoliberal international health policy, data from 26 sub-Saharan countries reveals that more than 50% of the poorest children receive no health care when sick (Marek et al., 2005). Data from 44 low- to middle-income countries (LMICs) suggest that the greater the participation of the private sector in primary health care (PHC), the higher the exclusion from treatment and care (Macintosh & Koivusalo, 2005) across sectors.

This is a textbook about public health with a difference. Firstly, it addresses policies relating to the delivery of health care – while the study of public health has historically evolved around issues of disease control. This book makes a case for alternative policies that could shape the structure and provision of universally accessible, polyvalent, discretionary health care, rather than making it work through its commodification and the priorities of cost-effective interventions in public services.

Type
Chapter
Information
International Health and Aid Policies
The Need for Alternatives
 , pp. xxv - xxxviii
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2010

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