Health care in Mexican rural communities : an emergency management approach.

Bibliography: p. 17

This article considers the state of health in ten different rural communities in Mexico, when comparing it to the epidemiology of the whole country. An emergency management approach was used to attack these problems. The project was focused on training 10 health assistants from each one of the communities in emergency management planning concepts. The assistants identified the 10 major problems for the region and according to these assessments different health programs have been started. When comparing health activities from this year with the activities from 1999, improvement in the ten major health activities defined has been observed. Community participation, flexibility and adaptability to different cultural aspects of each community were key points for the success of the project. Lack of authority from the health assistants and less community participation, have been identified as predictors of lower success rates