Economics and health in the treatment of type 2 diabetes mellitus

Approximation to the current status of public health institutions in the metropolitan area of Guadalajara.

Abstract

In Mexico, the incorporation of an economic vision of health has been recent. This is significant because in the rest of the world, mainly in the so-called developed countries, this vision has played a relevant role as part of the changes taking place in those economies. Today in Mexico it is a subject that is beginning to interest health professionals, as a result of the reforms that the current public administration is making to the system. Mexico's public health institutions, which in 2002 served 51.4% of the Mexican population, have undertaken changes in health care by incorporating the combination of criteria of "socially perceived priority" with economic rationality. These changes are the result of two important factors: the evolution of health systems around the world since the 1960s, in which rationality has been a fundamental element, and the current weakness of the Mexican health system to attend to a population that grew exponentially in the 1970s and 1980s, and which at the beginning of the 21st century is beginning a strong aging process.