Each year, the PHFI Foundation Day Lecture focuses on a public health area of great national and global importance, to be delivered by a distinguished leader in the field.

This year's lecture, “Revitalising Primary Health Care: From Evidence to Action”, is by Prof. Sir Andrew Haines, Director, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. Last year, the PHFI Foundation Day Lecture focused on the issue of climate change and health, and was delivered by Prof. Anthony J. McMichael, NHMRC Australia Fellow at the National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health, The Australian National University, Canberra.

This year, we seek to focus on the most basic element of public health – primary health care, and the challenges that lie ahead in reviving primary health care across the world, and more specifically, in India. In recognition of the emerging global concern over the need for better health outcomes across communities, populations and nations, we at PHFI are keen to highlight the strong linkages that exist between efficient primary health care systems and improved human health.

The 2009 Lecture in Brief

Primary health care, ideally, is universally available, affordable, essential health care for individuals, families and communities. Its cornerstones are community participation, inter-sectoral cooperation, use of up-to-date and suitable technology, and a comprehensive approach to health and disease. In 1978, representatives from 134 countries gathered in Alma-Ata and declared that primary health care (PHC) was the key to delivering health for all by the year 2000. Subsequently however, attention shifted to promoting vertical, disease-specific programmes. Efficient as they have been in tackling specific disease burden, such programmes are inadequate in their ability to address the socio-economic determinants of health, resulting in a still high burden of preventable diseases, particularly in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).

Recent years have seen a renewed interest in PHC in LMICs for a range of reasons, including profound inequities in health, inadequate progress towards the Millennium Development Goals, major shortfalls in the human resources required, and the fragmented and weakened state of health systems in many countries. This lecture will throw light on the growing evidence that appropriate policies and strategies to support PHC can result in substantial improvements in health in low income settings.

Professor Sir Andrew Haines

Prof. Sir Andrew Haines has been heading the prestigious London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, which is one of the world's foremost institutions in the field of public health, as Dean, and subsequently Director, since January 2001. He has previously been Professor of Primary Health Care and Director of the Department of Primary Care and Population Sciences, at University College London Medical School, and has had many years of experience as a general practitioner in North London. He was also formerly Regional Director of Research & Development at the National Health Service (NHS) Executive, North Thames and a member of the governing council of the Medical Research Council.

He has worked in a number of countries including in Nepal and USA. His main research interests are in primary care, health services research and epidemiology. In particular, he has undertaken a number of major intervention trials in primary care settings and has also studied the impact of climatic factors on health, and has many publications on these topic areas. He was a member of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for their second and third assessment reports. He also chaired a Task Force on Health Systems Research for WHO which reported in 2005. He sits on many national and international committees including, until recently, the WHO Advisory Committee on Health Research, as well as the Advisory Board of the National Institute of Health Research of England. He is chair of the Universities UK Health and Social Care Policy Committee and of the MRC Global Health Strategy Group. He was knighted in the 2005 New Year Honours list for services to medicine.