Community-Oriented Primary Care: New Relevance in a Changing World
Fitzhugh Mullan, MD and
Leon Epstein, MB, ChB, MPH
Fitzhugh Mullan is with the Department of Prevention and Community Health, George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services, Washington, DC. Leon Epstein is with the Department of Social Medicine, Hadassah Medical Organization and Hebrew UniversityHadassah Braun School of Public Health and Community Medicine, Jerusalem, Israel.
Correspondence: Requests for reprints should be sent to Fitzhugh Mullan, MD, 7500 Old Georgetown Rd, Suite 600, Bethesda, MD 20814 (e-mail: fmullan{at}projecthope.org).
Since its inception in rural, pre-apartheid South Africa, community-orientedprimary care (COPC) has intrigued and informed public healthand primary care leaders worldwide. COPC has influenced suchprograms as the US community health center movement, the generalpractice movement in the United Kingdom, and recent reformsin the public health system of South Africa.
We provide a global overview of COPC, tracing its conceptualroots, reviewing its many manifestations, and exploring itsfuture prospects as an organizational paradigm for the democraticorganization of community health services. We examine the pitfallsand paradoxes of COPC and suggest its future utility.
COPC has important values and methods to offer disparate butpowerful movements in public health worldwide.
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