Recently, primary health care and community participation are the major issues in the health and social policy. Many researches have been studied in strengthening them continuously. The first objective of this study is to compare and evaluate the relative effectiveness of community vs. partnership model in strengthening primary health care and community participation in rural Korea. The second is to identify factors which contribute to strengthening primary health care and community participation. It is hoped that the results of this study offer some new insights into health and social policy in Korea.
A community whose characteristics correspond best to those of community model as defined by the World Health Organization was selected. We chose Kemsa-Myon, Yeoju-Kun, Kyonggi-Do where Community Based Integrated Rural Development (CBIRD) program has been in operation since 1973. Another community which has special features corresponding to partnership model is Seo-Myon, Choonsung-Kun, Kangwon-Do where Seoul National University, the local government and community have participated in providing primary health care since 1972. It is planned to interview about 300 families each from community and partnership model sites. It will be about 30 percent sampling of total Myon population.
For preliminary analysis, frequency distribution and cross tabulation and t-test are used. Multiple regressions are used to test the major hypothesis.
Four hypotheses in this study are:
I. Community model is more effective than partnership model in utilization of medical organization.
II. Community model is more effective than partnership model in community participation.
III. Partnership model is more effective than community model in health insurance coverage.
IV. Partnership model is more effective than community model in the degree of health perception.
Hypotheses I, II, IV are supported with a statistically satisfactory level of confidence. However, the paucity of data preclude from identifying the factors of Hypothesis III.
