In 1978, the Alma-Ata Declaration established a bold plan for global health action and social justice, identifying primary health care as the lynchpin for achieving health for all.1 Several years later, the Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion, responding to growing health challenges within industrialized societies, formally recognized underlying determinants as an integrated and vital part of h...

OBJECTIVES In recent years, the government of the Philippines embarked upon an ambitious Universal Health Care program, underpinned by the rapid scale-up of subsidized insurance coverage for poor and vulnerable populations. With a view of reducing the stubbornly high maternal mortality rates in the country, the program has a strong focus on maternal health services and is supported by a nationa...