ABSTRACT
This chapter compares and contrasts the planning approaches, elucidates the basic planning parameters for each and suggests a planning model for both. Planning parameters specifically relevant to the population-based planning model include analysis of the determinants of health, or the risk factors and conditions that give rise to health and illness. The chapter elaborates determinants of health and discusses the relevant issues for population-based health planning. Health planning is concerned with acting on the determinants of health. Normative planning standards evolved as a tool in planning in the 1970s and 1980s, in response to a need to contain costs and promote equity. Planning standards are used somewhat less frequently today because sophisticated simulation tools provide for more accurate forecasting of a particular population’s health service need and projected service utilisation. An institutional approach to health service planning is concerned with health service delivery from the health system or health service perspective.
