"Why no egg?" building competency and self-reliance: a primary health care principle
Smith, S.
Canadian Journal of Public Health 82(1): 16-18
1991
ISSN/ISBN: 0008-4263 PMID: 2009478 Document Number: 381214
Poverty supports a low level of education which offers few life opportunities. This leads to low income, undernutrition, and illness and then return to a deepening poverty. During a famine in developed countries, the media emphasize the depressing conditions under which people live, but do not always explain causes of the situation. Likewise, all too often, health personnel center on physical weakness and neglect the ill person's isolation, powerlessness, and vulnerability. When assessing the health of communities which influences the health of inhabitants, one also examines resource allocation leading to finding out who controls decisions and resources. One learns that politics, power groups, and distribution of land and wealth affect people's health more so than treatment or prevention. Health personnel are beginning to realize that health work mirrors societal values and is not apolitical. Indeed health promotion/disease prevention ranks low in priority. For example, our developed society is willing to spend close to $100,000 over 10 years on someone with cardiovascular diseases largely brought on by lifestyle and nutrition habits, but not spend $7000 over 10 years on a mother of 2 who is repeatedly abused then killed by her husband. To scrutinize the mother's situation means looking at poverty, isolation, and vulnerability which is more arduous than operating on someone's heart. This mean people should have access to accurate information, adequate skills, take part in decision making, be able to critically analyze life situations, and have confidence and resources to take action. The primary health care approach advocates competency and self reliance thereby demanding fundamental social change. It also addresses power, politics, and inequities.