Health Services Research: What is It?

Abstract

This article reviews the hegemonic understanding of health services research in the United States and in the Anglo-Saxon world, taking as a point of reference the recently published PAHO anthology, Health Services Research: An Anthology (which contains the classics in health services research). The author outlines the main characteristics of health services research in the United States, and criticizes the focus on medical care of most health services research literature and the narrow spectrum of positions presented in that literature. He concludes that there is an urgent need for analyses of the socioeconomic and political forces that determine the level of health and the type of health services that exist in any society, analyses that are usually avoided in health services research.