Nature:

The degree of general health improvement achieved by public and private health services is not as high as might be desired. Although technical knowledge for achieving better health is available, in most countries this knowledge is not being put to the best advantage of the greatest number. Health resources are allocated mainly to sophisticated medical institutions in urban areas. Rather than better health for the average person, "improvement of health" tends to be equated with the provision of medical care dispensed by growing numbers of specialists, using narrow medical technologies for the benefit of the privileged few. At the same time, access of large segments of the world's population to health services is limited or non-existent; disadvantaged groups throughout the world have no access to any permanent form of health care. These groups probably total four-fifths of the world's population, living mainly in rural areas and urban slums.

In some countries, even though health facilities are located within easy reach, inability to pay or cultural taboos put them out of bounds. To complicate matters, health systems are often devised outside the mainstream of social and economic development, frequently restricting themselves to medical care, although industrialization and deliberate alteration of the environment are creating health problems whose proper control lies far beyond the scope of medical care. Such services operate in an isolated manner, neglecting other factors contributing to human wellbeing such as education, communications, agriculture, social organization, community motivation and involvement. This ignores the fact that health cannot be attained by the health sector alone.

In developing countries in particular, economic development, anti-poverty measures, food production, water, sanitation, housing, environmental protection and education all contribute to health and have the same goal of human development. The pace of technological and economic development requires an intensified release of human energy, placing heightened importance on physical stamina as a precondition. However, although the current diet upon which people exist may appear to be ample, it lacks the nutritional balance to sustain regular participation in a modernized society. In addition, a whole complex of issues such as safe water, refrigeration and basic hygiene remain relatively undeveloped and therefore continues to perpetuate illness that drains vitality. The sheer number of people in the care of one doctor, the remoteness of proper medical facilities and the high cost of treatment prevent early detection of disease; continuation of energy-draining low-grade infections results in either long-lasting or permanently chronic defects. The care of the physical well-being of rural people when called upon to make such efforts at development is a crucial factor that cannot be neglected.