Local housing scheme and political preference as conditions for the results of a health centre-stimulating policy in The Netherlands.
About two decades ago, changes in the demand for primary care in the Netherlands resulted in a need for more interprofessional collaboration. Health centres developed as a new supply of integrated care. The government was aware of the importance of this phenomenon in its policy to strengthen primary care. The encouragement of health centres was a crucial part of it. The development of this policy and the resulting growth in the number of health centres will be reviewed here. In general, this growth is lagging behind initial policy expectations, partly because of a lack of instruments to implement PHC policy. Examination of geographical distribution of health centres, however, shows a variation suggesting that local factors also affect the development of health centres. Empirical findings show that the number of newly built houses in an area and the political 'colour' of the alderman for public health play a role in the development of health centres and thus co-determine the results of a central promotion policy to a certain extent.
D000704:Analysis of Variance; D003151:Community Health Centers / Q000600:supply & distribution*; D003159:Community-Institutional Relations; D006275:Health Facility Planning; D006291:Health Policy; D006798:Housing / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D009426:Netherlands; D011057:Politics; D011320:Primary Health Care / Q000639:trends*