The Role of Primary Care in Improving Population Health

Abstract

Policy Points Systems based on primary care have better population health, health equity, and health care quality, and lower health care expenditure. Primary care can be a boundary-spanning force to integrate and personalize the many factors from which population health emerges. Equitably advancing population health requires understanding and supporting the complexly interacting mechanisms by which primary care influences health, equity, and health costs.

Keywords: care integration; general practice; generalism; health equity; health expenditures; physician-patient relationship; population health; primary health care.