Proposal for a Comparative Review of Circumpolar Health Systems [CircHSR].

Abstract

"Health care for remote, sparsely populated communities across the circumpolar North face substantial organizational, financial, logistical, technical, and human resource challenges. While circumpolar regions share many common features, they have evolved vastly different health care systems and policies. Identifying, evaluating and comparing approaches to policy development, best practices and successful models across these regions represent a potentially useful research strategy to improve and strengthen health care delivery, especially in primary health care and public health. A health services and policy research program that focuses on issues unique to the North currently does not exist. Before such a research program can be developed and launched, several critical preliminary steps must be undertaken, the first of which is to conduct a comparative review of existing health care systems and policies." /.../