'Botanical Sciences, Sociedad Botanica de Mexico, AC'
Abstract
Mexico is going througb a transition process in many
areas, sucn as demography, epidemiology, culture and
edueation, eeonomy and politics. In this rapidly changing
seene, the national commitment to provide quality health
services for every Mexican remains constant. Primary
health eare is considered the most effective strategy to
achieve this goal, whicb is identical to that of the World
Health Organization: "Health for all by the year 2000".
Primary health care overeomes a traditional diehotomy
in health services by integrating first level attention with
public health activities, sueh as health edueation, home
and work place sanitation, vaeeination and eommunity
partieipation. In order to ea"y out the primary health
care strategy, the National Health System must face
major challenges whieh are analyzed in this paper as wel/
as the various possible ways to overeome them. Finally, innovative Mexican programs are described. The authors
concIude that all necessary elements needed to make the
"Health for All" goal a reaIity are available
