Abstract:

Unified, comprehensive health care planning for the entire life course is needed, adapted to local requirements & designed to be changed as necessary. Such a plan can be formulated only if policymakers stop defining the provider as "independent" & the care recipient as "dependent"; giving/receiving care is an interdependent relationship of benefits, trade-offs, & personal gain. Also, a life-course contingent caring process must view the family as the principal source of care, complemented by support networks within the sphere of work, ethnicity, religion, & neighborhood, as well as by the services of community public authorities & agencies. An effective health care policy must adopt an inclusive taxonomy of care capable of responding to the continuously changing interaction between self-based & other forms of care. This alternative to classifications according to "informal caring" & "formal providers" allows planners to implement community care strategies that are life-course sensitive. Given that human affliction exists in a social context, it is unwise to model a community care system as a strictly economic-medical, or producer-consumer enterprise. A case example is provided.