Challenging a universal approach to health care integration: China, Cuba, and the Philippines

This paper examines both the construction and the appropriateness of the World Health Organization's model for the integration of non-biomedical practices and practitioners into biomedical health care systems. Through both primary research and a critical review of the literature, this paper assesses what health care integration is; how health care integration is being practised in different contexts; if WHO's representation and practice of health care integration are appropriate to a given context; and how might health care integration be reframed.This article belongs to the Special Issue: Public Health in Integrative Medicine.