Accessing Healthcare: Responding to diversity
Judith Healy and Martin McKee
Abstract
Health care systems in developed countries must respond to diverse populations especially given increasing population movements. These groups make different claims upon the state and may have different health care needs and expectations. But policy-makers and professionals often seem blind to this diversity. To ensure the wellbeing of its whole population, a state must respond to subgroups in terms of their health status and access to health services. The chapters in this book discuss countries and population groups that illustrate different responses to claimant groups and different ways of d ... More
Health care systems in developed countries must respond to diverse populations especially given increasing population movements. These groups make different claims upon the state and may have different health care needs and expectations. But policy-makers and professionals often seem blind to this diversity. To ensure the wellbeing of its whole population, a state must respond to subgroups in terms of their health status and access to health services. The chapters in this book discuss countries and population groups that illustrate different responses to claimant groups and different ways of delivering health services. The chapters consider inherent population diversity (age, sex), citizenship issues (e.g. migrants, asylum seekers), and ethnic and indigenous groups (Roma in Europe, New Zealand Maori, Australian Aborigines). Are there barriers to people receiving equitable health care? Should mainstream health services be more responsive to the needs of different people, or should alternative health services be set up? The book provides a breadth of perspectives from which to draw conclusions on how to meet the needs of societies characterized by diversity.
Keywords:
healthcare,
access,
equity,
diversity,
multicultural,
mainstream,
alternative
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2004 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780198516187 |
| Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: September 2009 |
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198516187.001.0001 |
Authors
Affiliations are at time of print publication.
Judith Healy, editor
Director, Social Protection Facility, Research School of Social Sciences, The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia
Martin McKee, editor
Professor of European Public Health, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, UK
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