Community Participation in Health
The Politics of Primary Care in Costa Rica

An anthropological study of the failure of community participation in health-care in Costa Rica.

Lynn M. Morgan (Author)

9780521025706, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 20 April 2006

196 pages, 2 b/w illus. 3 tables
22.9 x 15.3 x 1.3 cm, 0.303 kg

'This book offers a comprehensive and rich political-economic ethnography that argues for the politization of primary health-care.' Ivette Cardena, British Medical Anthropology Society Newsletter

A guiding principle of international primary health care since the 1970s is contained in the slogan, 'community participation in health'. In practice, however, national and local political considerations are often decisive in the implementation of health policies. Dr Morgan shows how 'community participation' was sacrificed to competing political priorities even in Costa Rica, a country known for its dedication to health care. Focusing on a banana-growing community, she documents and analyses the process by which local health policy is politicized. Her sophisticated case study sets a detailed rural ethnography in both a national and international context. This book will be of great interest to medical anthropologists, planners, and anyone concerned with international health and development policy.

1. The political symbolism of health
2. Banana medicine: the United Fruit Company
3. The international imperative: foreign aid for health in Costa Rica
4. The primary health care movement and the political ideology of participation in health
5. Participation in Costa Rica: dissent within the state
6. La Chira: participation in a banana-growing community
7. The political economy of participation.

Subject Areas: Health systems & services [MBP]