Exhibit 055

The origins of primary health care and selective primary health care

Exhibit 055 · Peer-reviewed history

The origins of primary health care and selective primary health care

the Rockefeller Foundation sponsored in 1979 a small conference entitled “Health and Population in Development” at its Bellagio Conference Center in Italy.

In 1979 the Rockefeller Foundation sponsored the conference 'Health and Population in Development' at its Bellagio Center. Participants included Robert McNamara of the World Bank, David Bell of the Ford Foundation, John Gilligan of USAID, WHO Director-General Halfdan Mahler and James Grant, later head of UNICEF. The meeting built on Walsh and Warren's 1979 paper on selective primary health care, a package of low-cost technical interventions against the main diseases of poor countries. The package became UNICEF's GOBI program under Grant.

Source: Marcos Cueto, American Journal of Public Health 94(11): 1864–1874
Date: November 2004
Quoted from: Am J Public Health 94(11):1864-1874, section "Selective Primary Health Care" (p. 1868 in print; PDF p. 5)
Grade: Peer-reviewed
Document: https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.94.11.1864
Accessed: 2026-11-09
Cited by: Findings citing this exhibit

Cited by

Finding MED-2.6: Peer-reviewed In 1979, one year after the Alma-Ata declaration of "Health for All," a Rockefeller-sponsored conference at Bellagio took up selective primary health care, the narrower package that UNICEF adopted as GOBI.