Problematizing a singular approach to health care integration: China, Cuba, India and the Philippines

This research examines both the construction and the appropriateness of the World Health Organization’s model for the integration of non-biomedical practices and practitioners into biomedical health care systems. Through both primary research and a comparative critical review of the literature concerning integration in China, Cuba, India and The Philippines, this paper assesses what health care integration is; how health care integration is being practised in these different contexts; if WHO’s representation and practice of health care integration are appropriate to a given context; and how might health care integration be reframed. The findings of this research illustrate that a hegemonic conception of health care integration must ultimately be reconsidered and reformulated to better accommodate local levels and ultimately provide improved access to health care, as was intended in the WHO’s original conceptualisation of health care integration.