Roma populations’ low health status and limited access to health services, including primary care, has been documented in many European countries, and warrants specific health policies and practices. ...A variety of experiences shows how primary care can adjust its practices to reduce the barriers to primary care for Roma populations.
At local level, establishing collaboration with Roma organisations helps primary care to improve mutual relations and quality of care. Mediation has proved to be an effective tool. Skills training of primary care practitioners may enhance their individual competences. Research and international sharing of experiences are further tools to improve primary care for the Roma people.
Social Capital, the advantage created by location in social structure, is a critical element in business strategy. Who has it, how it works, and how to develop it have become key questions as ...markets, organizations, and careers become more and more dependent on informal, discretionary relationships. The formal organization deals with accountability; everything else flows through the informal: advice, coordination, cooperation friendship, gossip, knowledge, trust. Informal relations have always been with us, they have always mattered. What is new is the range of activities in which they now matter, and the emerging clarity we have about how they create advantage for certain people at the expense of others. This is done by brokerage and closure. ... Brokerage is the activity of people who live at the intersection of social worlds, who have a vision advantage of seeing and developing good ideas, an advantage which can be seen in their compensation, recognition, and the responsibility they're entrusted with in comparison to their peers. Closure is the tightening of coordination in a closed network of people, and people who do this do well as a complement to brokers because of the trust and alignment they create. This book explores how these elements work together to define social capital, showing how in the business world reputation has come to replace authority, pursued opportunity assignment, and reward has come to be associated with achieving competitive advantage in a social order of continuous disequilibrium. (DIPF/Orig.).