Networking Primary Health Care: Mississippi Discovers the Iranian Health System

Today, the world is ambitiously posed for a fresh era of productive relationships with Iran, even as the middle east remains a quagmire more than ever before. But in Mississippi humanitarian concerns had long surpassed the slow pace of global politics. Since 2007 we have reached out to Iranian health experts to learn from their exemplary Primary Health Care networks, hoping to apply the time tested logic that had borne immense achievements in Iran, to a similar set of problems afflicting the most deprived communities in the Delta region. “A wonderful illustration of the benefits to global health when a recognition of shared challenges and the ability to learn from one another drives the partnership.” Roger I. Glass, M.D., Ph.D., Director, Fogarty International Center, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland USA