Event Title
Access and utilization reconsidered: the case for a renewed geography of primary health care
Description
Geographers have had a long engagement with primary health care, or at least primary care, as a focus for examining questions of welfare equity and distributive justice. Much of the more established work in geography concentrates on measuring the spatial distribution of service providers and the impact of friction of distance on patterns of service utilization. Yet for all of these noteworthy efforts, there is a pervasive feeling, as expressed by Martin Powell more than a decade ago, that geographers remain "on the outside looking in" when it comes to influencing wider health studies and policy. I will suggest that this is in no small measure due to a lack of sophistication in the geographical literature with respect to consideration of the underlying structural issues and institutional dynamics at work in determining issues of who provides primary health care and how services are organized and distributed spatially. In this presentation, I will make the case for a reformulated approach to primary health care access and utilization that positions inherently geographical concerns at the forefront of health research and policy evaluation.
Document Type
Event
Start Date
8-3-2008 8:00 AM
Subject - LCSH
Health services accessibility; Primary care (Medicine); Medical offices--Location
End Date
8-3-2008 5:00 PM
Session
Geographies of Health and Well-Being
Genre/Form
abstracts (summaries)
Type
event
Rights
Copying of this document in whole or in part is allowable only for scholarly purposes. It is understood, however, that any copying or publication of this document for commercial purposes, or for financial gain, shall not be allowed without the author's written permission.
Language
English
Format
application/pdf
Keywords
primary health care, access, geography
Access and utilization reconsidered: the case for a renewed geography of primary health care
Geographers have had a long engagement with primary health care, or at least primary care, as a focus for examining questions of welfare equity and distributive justice. Much of the more established work in geography concentrates on measuring the spatial distribution of service providers and the impact of friction of distance on patterns of service utilization. Yet for all of these noteworthy efforts, there is a pervasive feeling, as expressed by Martin Powell more than a decade ago, that geographers remain "on the outside looking in" when it comes to influencing wider health studies and policy. I will suggest that this is in no small measure due to a lack of sophistication in the geographical literature with respect to consideration of the underlying structural issues and institutional dynamics at work in determining issues of who provides primary health care and how services are organized and distributed spatially. In this presentation, I will make the case for a reformulated approach to primary health care access and utilization that positions inherently geographical concerns at the forefront of health research and policy evaluation.