Community Health Projects (CHPs) represent very heterogeneous kinds of activity, contributing significantly to human health and quality of living. This paper indicates the role and linking function ...of CHPs in searching for and carrying out innovative and alternative forms of health protection, primarily in the area of better living with disease and in the context ‘the healthy for the healthy’. Possible visions for the development of particular CHPs are suggested. The issues of CHPs' autonomy and of social supports are emphasized in particular. In comparison with their equivalents in advanced countries, CHPs in Yugoslav society have some advantages as well as deficiencies. Comparative advantages are in high self-involvement of medical personnel and other individuals on a voluntary basis, with no pay, and in a relatively strong self-initiative and mutual solidarity within particular CHPs. Our comparative deficiencies, on the other hand, lie in a too modest and unsystematic support and development of CHPs, in inadequate intersector connections and in the neglecting of interdisciplinary approaches.
Community Health Projects (CHPs) represent very heterogeneous kinds of activity, contributing significantly to human health and quality of living. This paper indicates the role and linking function ...of CHPs in searching for and carrying out innovative and alternative forms of health protection, primarily in the area of better living with disease and in the context 'the healthy for the healthy'. Possible visions for the development of particular CHPs are suggested. The issues of CHPs' autonomy and of social supports are emphasized in particular. In comparison with their equivalents in advanced countries, CHPs in Yugoslav society have some advantages as well as deficiencies. Comparative advantages are in high self-involvement of medical personnel and other individuals on a voluntary basis, with no pay, and in a relatively strong self-initiative and mutual solidarity within particular CHPs. Our comparative deficiencies, on the other hand, lie in a too modest and unsystematic support and development of CHPs, in inadequate intersector connections and in the neglecting of interdisciplinary approaches.
