Iranian health houses open the door to primary care

Working in pairs out of modest, village-based facilities, the Islamic Republic of Iran's trained community health workers, the behvarzan, provide basic health care to most of the country's rural population. 
 
Improvements to primary health care started in the 1970s. In 1975, latrine building helped to create healthy surroundings.

Iranian health houses, conceived and introduced during the 1980s, have been at the centre of the attempt to bring health care to every district.

Devised in 1981, the plan was informed by a health-care development programme from the Western Azerbaijan province that had focused strongly on what we now recognize to be primary health care. It emphasized community participation and intersectoral cooperation to serve the needs of the thinly distributed and rapidly swelling population.