Health and health care in a post-industrial society

We are moving into a period in which more members of society are beginning to understand that factors which determine human health reside largely outside the sphere of health care services. The resource requirements to tackle some of the issues in this area, such as the socioeconomic factors that influence health, are now recognized and could be an important consideration in the allocation of public funds to prevention rather than cure. Because health care services are varied and have a high degree of uncertainty, there will be increasing pressure to adopt a strategy of providing effective health care services efficiently, based on the health status of the population in a more decentralized system of care. This means that increasingly we will have to be concerned with understanding the effectiveness of the interventions that we are providing for people when they are ill. It also means that we will have to introduce measures to ensure that these services are provided efficiently.