Tailoring care to individuals and populations within resource-poor settings: A review and commentary on the World Health Organisation Report People-Centred Care in Low and Middle Income Countries

The comprehensive definition of health articulated by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and incorporated into its Constitution in 1946 had a profound impact on the international understanding of health and disease, informing a wide range of health services research and development initiatives and giving great momentum to the prevention and treatment of ill health and to the promotion of positive health globally. WHO’s growing interest in the individualisation of health care and in a more effective tailoring of care to communities has led to a series of important resolutions and publications, most recently illustrated, perhaps, by the 2007 Reports People Centred Health Care and People at the Centre of Health Care, by the 2008 Report Primary Health Care: Now More Than Ever and, most signally, by the relevant resolutions of the WHO World Health Assembly in 2009. As a result of these particular actions and the impetus provided by the International Network for Person-Centered Medicine (INPCM), much progress has been made in the articulation and implementation of person-centered clinical medicine and people-centered public health in the Developed World