Resource Library

Organization of Health Care in Developing Countries

The present edition of this selective bibliography is a partial upgrade of the 2001 list, not a cumulative replacement. Evidently, many references from the last 3 years have been added, but the pre-1990 literature is no longer represented (even early 1990's references are scarce). Also, because of the inherent evolution of research and education trends, some of the earlier topics have not been retained, while new ones were added. This new edition is based on the same general principles as explained in the 2001 introduction, i.e. relevant international health literature that is locally available for a specific audience. As far as the presentation is concerned, short alphabetically ordered topics were replaced by logically ordered chapters featuring subdivisions, often on several levels. Within each section the references are now arranged in reverse chronological order, so the most recent literature is always listed first. We have retained our library codes for easy local usage of the lists, and also have included URL's for more or less 'grey' documents and reports that are freely available on the World Wide Web. We have limited these URL's to the server or (sub)directory level, as in our experience these tend to be more persistent than document-specific URL's. We have chosen not to include URL's for the mainstream literature (i.e. journal articles), as actual accessibility generally depends on library subscriptions, and is best resolved in this context. The increasing dominance of English language publications is striking. In our Health Care in Developing Countries database, the post-1989 publications — on which this selection is based — constitute 80%; of these, 83.3% are in English. Yet where available, we have also included the French literature. Finally, the current editors acknowledge their debt to former ITM librarian Gilbert Roelants, who initiated both the Health Care in Developing Countries database and this anthology series, and selected the literature up until 1999.