This discussion paper highlights the considerable health, social and economic consequences of climate change in the developing countries of the Pacific Ocean, where fragile environments, failing economies, poor population health, and a shortage of needed workforce skills mean there are fewer resources to prevent and manage them. The paper does not aim to present policies...

Progress towards the achievement of the unfulfilled Millennium Development Goals appears to be losing momentum in a number of Pacific Island countries, and the impact of the global financial crisis will further slow this progress.

The failure to foresee the baby boom that began in Australia in 2005 and has now hit a thirty-year high has had serious consequences for public hospitals and birthing services.

The term ‘primary health care’ is commonly used interchangeably with ‘primary care’. However, strictly speaking, primary health care is a strategy of public health, derived from the social model of health and sustained by the Declaration of Alma Alta, which was jointly sponsored by the World Health Organisation and UNICEF in 1979. Primary health care...