Abstract
Primary Health Care (PHC) and Health Promotion (HP) have been adopted as core health strategies for socio-political interventions. Although the two have a lot of similarities in terms of concepts, they, nevertheless, have their differences. The first difference lies in the population and diseases perspectives that PHC and HP are literally defined as just “health care” and “promotion of health”, respectively. The second difference, from a social and political point of view, is that PHC can be expressed as social and political efforts to make health knowledge, health care skills and the entire health service delivery system respond to the people's needs and situations, while HP is a process in which individuals and their environment are geared toward the pursuit of healthy lifestyles. These differences strengthen the unique values of each strategy. HP, which is a form of social mobilization for health, is about catering to the needs of developing countries. On the other hand, the principle of PHC, which is beneficiary-oriented, is universally applicable for both developed and developing countries.
