Access to primary care and public health

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

Public health has traditionally considered the main role of health services to be in the relief of sickness, rather than in the improvement of population health.1 But it is now clear that access to primary care in high-income countries might be of considerable importance in terms of delivering preventive medical interventions and providing a gateway to a health-care system that delivers effective interventions for the major causes of mortality, including cancer and cardiovascular disease. US studies2,3 estimate that access to medical care might now contribute several years to life expectancy.