Structural and Hidden Barriers to a Local Primary Health Care Infrastructure: Autonomy, Decisions about Primary Health Care, and the Centrality and Significance of Power

Abstract

Purpose

To examine a local primary health care infrastructure and the reality of primary health care from the perspective of residents of a small, urban community in the southern United States.

Methodology/approach

Data were derived from 13 semistructured focus groups, plus three semistructured interviews, and were analyzed inductively consistent with a grounded theory approach.

Findings

Structural barriers to the local primary health care infrastructure include transportation, clinic and appointment wait time, and co-payments and health insurance. Hidden barriers consist of knowledge about local health care services, nonphysician gatekeepers, and fear of medical care. Community residents have used home remedies and the emergency department at the local academic medical center to manage these structural and hidden barriers.

Research limitations/implications

Findings might not generalize to primary health care infrastructures in other communities, respondent perspectives can be biased, and the data are subject to various interpretations and conceptual and thematic frameworks. Nevertheless, the structural and hidden barriers to the local primary health care infrastructure have considerably diminished the autonomy community residents have been able to exercise over their decisions about primary health care, ultimately suggesting that efforts concerned with increasing the access of medically underserved groups to primary health care in local communities should recognize the centrality and significance of power.

Originality/value

This study addresses a gap in the sociological literature regarding the impact of specific barriers to primary health care among medically underserved groups.

Citation

Freed, C.R., Hansberry, S.T. and Arrieta, M.I. (2013), "Structural and Hidden Barriers to a Local Primary Health Care Infrastructure: Autonomy, Decisions about Primary Health Care, and the Centrality and Significance of Power", Social Determinants, Health Disparities and Linkages to Health and Health Care (Research in the Sociology of Health Care, Vol. 31), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 57-81. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0275-4959(2013)0000031006