Primary care: choices and opportunities for racial/ethnic minority populations in the USA and UK--a comparative analysis.
This paper examines and compares the choices made and the opportunities provided by the United States and the United Kingdom in delivering primary care services to their racial/ethnic minority populations. While both nations agree that the most effective strategy for health service delivery to a diverse population lies in primary care, their approaches to obtaining this goal have been quite different. Sociological theories of functionalism and conflict perspective provide the analytical and organizing framework of the paper. Within this theoretical context, the health systems in place in each country are examined as an outgrowth of the larger socio-political, economic and cultural structures of the US and UK. Analysis of the advance of managed care in the US and the recent NHS reforms are also discussed in terms of lessons learned and the difficulties that lay ahead in order to ensure that these new developments contribute significantly to eliminating the disproportionately worse health status of racial ethnic minorities. Towards that goal the paper identifies opportunities for collaboration and specific recommendations for future action by both countries.
Smith
M B
MB
Urban Studies Department, Queens College, CUNY, USA.
D005006:Ethnicity; D006302:Health Services Research; D006801:Humans; D008913:Minority Groups; D011057:Politics; D011320:Primary Health Care / Q000191:economics / Q000458:organization & administration*; D044469:Racial Groups; D012931:Social Environment; D013222:State Medicine; D006113:United Kingdom; D014481:United States