The Alma Ata Declaration - what does it mean?

The signing of the Alma Ata Declaration was the culmination of a lengthy process of reviewing national strategies for improving health, focusing particularly on a few countries that had experienced quite dramatic falls in avoidable deaths. This review identified several factors these experiences shared. The final document represented a consensus of health leaders from countries with a wide variety of political orientations and it included the following:

• a focus on the common problems that poor people faced largely associated with poverty
• an emphasis on prevention and the provision of easily accessible, low cost primary health care services at nearby facilities with basic equipment and staffed by people with basic training
• government leadership in the construction of facilities, training of personnel and the organisation and financing of services
• involvement of communities in activities to improve public health
• a close linkage between measures to improve health services and those aimed at other factors that contribute to ill-health