Health Planning

by

F. Douglas Scutchfield, Alex F. Howard, Robert M. Shapiro

• LAST REVIEWED: 23 February 2011
• LAST MODIFIED: 23 February 2011
• DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199756797-0041

Introduction

Health planning represents the first step in an orderly process to accomplish the things necessary to improve the health status of individuals and populations. The planning and evaluation cycle, however it is structured, allows us to be successful in identifying and solving health problems. Efforts to understand health problems and approach their solutions in an orderly fashion are fundamental to successful disease control and prevention. This is the basis and key to health planning. The ability to undertake a thoughtful consideration of problems, work to identify solutions, and measure success or failure, whether for midcourse correction of programs or for evaluating their success, is important to our efforts to create healthy communities. This bibliography examines some of the most important and salient features of health planning to help readers understand and use the tools of health planning to their advantage. As a wag has suggested, “If you don’t know where you are going, then any road works.” This bibliography attempts to provide the road map that assures success.

General Overviews

These items illustrate a broad perspective of public health, particularly the aspect of health planning. Included in this section are several works devoted to building the foundation of what defines the scope of public health and its duty in community health planning, like Scutchfield and Keck 2009 and Wallace 2008. Thomas 2003 provides a more focused approach to health planning, and Rowitz 2009 follows a similar path, focusing primarily on the leadership role in health planning. The international perspective of health planning is covered in this section and details situations and circumstances that are unique to developing and transitioning countries, as seen in Green 2007.

• Green, Andrew. 2007. An introduction to health planning for developing health systems. 3d ed. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.

  The third edition of Green’s textbook focuses on the importance of health planning for developing countries as well as those countries in transition. This text explores the various stages of the planning process and challenges that often accompany health planning.

• Rowitz, Louis. 2009. Public health leadership: Putting principles into practice. 2d ed. Sudbury, MA: Jones and Bartlett.

  Rowitz’s textbook provides insight into various public health leadership principles, including the implications of planning. Rowitz’s use of late-20th- and early-21st-century literature and personal experience in these areas of public health leadership provide in-depth coverage of practical applications of the health planning process.

• Scutchfield, F. Douglas, and C. William Keck, eds. 2009. Principles of public health practice. 3d ed. Clifton Park, NY: Delmar.

  The third edition of Principles of Public Health Practice includes a host of chapters authored by experts and leaders throughout the public health discipline. Management topics, such as strategic planning and community health planning, are discussed at length in this textbook.

• Thomas, Richard K. 2003. Health services planning. 2d ed. New York: Springer.

  Thomas’s textbook provides guidance for the development of diverse and appropriate health plans for both the community and the organization settings. In addition a glossary of terms often used in health services literature and case studies regarding health planning are provided.

• Wallace, Robert B., ed. 2008. Maxcy-Rosenau-Last public health and preventive medicine. 15th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill.

  This edition of Public Health and Preventive Medicine contains an expanded focus on the public health management of infectious disease, disease prevention, and health promotion. Section 6 is devoted to the health planning process, which is integral to community health improvement.