¹Health Policy and Management, Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, USA. E-mail: rsaltma@sph.emory.edu

Abstract

This paper explores the broad concept of household health security as a basis for health system reform. This concept incorporates a range of health and social services that influence the impact of an episode of illness on individual or household finances: curative and preventive healthcare, social care, rehabilitative care, occupational health services, workman's compensation, sickness pay, and disability pension. The paper examines the ability of this approach to refocus ongoing health system change in a manner consistent with both accepted social values as well as the increasing demands of financial stringency. By so doing, household health security may provide a simultaneously broader and more normative strategy with which to carry forward the notion of integrated care.