COMPREHENSIVE PRIMARY HEALTH CARE

Definition:

  • Comprehensive primary health care delivers clinical care for the full range of high priority health issues for all people across their lifespan.

Key characteristics of effective primary health care:

  • Frontline health workers delivering comprehensive primary care are a patient’s first contact with the health system.

  • Primary care is patient centered and responsive to both population and individuals’ health needs.

  • It is the point of coordination with specialists and other healthcare providers.

  • It builds trust with people and communities through continuous relationships with community-based providers.

  • Physicians, nurses, midwives, pharmacists, and community health workers are all important members of the primary health care team.

American Health Security is tied to Global Health Security  

  • Emerging health threats are best dealt with on the frontlines of care.  Effective epidemic response in other countries saves American lives.

  • Frontline health workers delivering ongoing primary care, in our country and others, are best positioned to spot unusual disease threats, report them, and provide care for them.  

  • These trusted providers in the community are essential to popular acceptance of the health measures needed to control an outbreak.

  • Simultaneously, primary health care also ensures people can get their high priority health needs met in times of both crisis and calm.

Higher Quality, Lower Cost

  • Strong primary health care delivers higher quality at lower cost than other options.  

  • The addition of more primary health care providers is proven to significantly reduce overall rates of death and illness. 

Support for Women:

  • Investment in primary health care benefits women both as patients and as health workers.

  • Women tend to use health services more than men and to be the first ones to seek care for themselves and their children.

  • As women are 70 percent of the global health workforce, such investment has economic benefits for them.

Reaching the Poor: 

  • Comprehensive primary care – getting multiple health needs met in one place - reduces geographic and financial barriers to care for the poor.  

  • People who are sick can’t work to support their families.  Keeping people healthy fights poverty.  

  • Employing more women drives down poverty, which disproportionately affects women.

Our Advocacy for Comprehensive Primary Health Care: 

In our Congressional advocacy for global health we focus on expanding the delivery of integrated primary care services by frontline health workers.  For Fiscal Year 2025, we are asking Congress to have the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) provide information on the proportion of its funds directed to implementing its policy of integrating HIV services with local primary healthcare settings. (See PEPFAR integration with primary care page)

US House of Representatives, State and Foreign Operations Subcommittee of Appropriations

US Senate, State and Foreign Operations Subcommittee of Appropriations