Health for all through research on primary care

This paper first explores what Health for All (HFA) means as a policy goal. It calls for major changes in health care. In the European Region of WHO, 38 targets show how approaches to health problems, lifestyles, environment, health care and support measures (e.g., planning, management and training) should be changed to reach the goal. These changes must be based on sound scientific knowledge. HFA therefore also calls for a health research policy. The second part looks at the research implications of HFA. WHO analyzed the 38 targets to see what kind of research would help to achieve them. This analysis resulted in two health research policy documents jointly called Research for health for all (RHFA). The first one explains why a country needs a health research policy. The second volume identifies the research necessary to reach the targets. The third part describes the research priorities identified in RHFA and shows their relevance for the primary health care research community. It ends with the prerequisites needed to make research for HFA possible. They include changes in the incentives for and financing of research, personnel development, research organization and communication between the researchers and decision-makers.