Global challenges, global solutions?

A Cross-National Comparison of Primary Health Care in Norway, Britain and the Chech Republic

Project manager
Olaug S. Lian, Dr. polit in sociology and assistant professor at ISM, University of Tromsø, Norway. Phone: +47 77 64 48 15.
E-mail: olaug.lian@ism.uit.no.

Main collaborators
The Czech Republic: Jan Jaroš, PhD in sociology, and chairman of the Czech Association for Health Services research, Prague. Kamil Kalina, M.D., PhD, vice-chairman same place.
Britain: Chris Ham, professor at HSMC, University of Birmingham.

Responsible institution
Institute of community medicine (ISM), Faculty of medicine, University of Tromsø, N-9037 Tromsoe, Norway.

Funding
The Norwegian Research Council, in collaboration with the University of Tromsø.

Project period
2001-2006

Project summary
Why do nations develop their primary health care systems as they do? The most common answer to this question is that local developments are shaped by global trends such as decreasing economic growth, escalating costs, aging populations, advances in medical knowledge and technology, heightened expectations, and an increasing dependence on medicine to solve human problems. Because of these global trends, different countries are drawn toward similar reform programs, and thus converge on some common point. Others claim that each country has unique cultural, economic, political and historical traditions that are likely to override global changes, and thus create patterns of divergence. In this project, the theories of convergence and divergence make the theoretical foundation for a cross-national comparison of the development of primary health care in Norway, Britain and the Czech Republic between 1990 and 2005. The theories shed light on the empirical cases, just as the empirical cases enable us to discuss the theories.