To see ourselves as others see us

This is a commentary on http://www.ijhpr.org/content/1/1/1/ webcite"It all depends". And that is the problem. Health policy making is not like civil engineering. Building a bridge across a river in the United States is very much the same as building one in China. Building a health system, as both of those countries are currently realizing, is much more difficult [1,2]. Health systems, like all complex adaptive human systems, are shaped by their environments, their cultures (what the soft systems experts term Weltanschauung, or world vision), and by their participants [3,4].Yet that is only the beginning. Bridges only have to provide a means of getting from A to B. Health systems must do many things, and the importance placed upon them will depend on who you are [5]. As a potential patient, one expects that the system will be there to provide care when it is needed. As someone paying taxes or health insurance contributions, one hopes it will do so in a cost-effective way. As a public health professional, one would hope that it would strive to prevent people becoming ill in the first place. As a health professional, one hopes that it will provide the training, facilities, and technology necessary to do one's job well. As a human rights activist, one hopes that it will treat people fairly and with dignity. As a central banker, one hopes that it will contribute to macroeconomic stability and economic growth (for example, by preventing the need to hoard cash because of fear of catastrophic expenditure or by supporting the biotechnology industry). And as a local politician, one hopes that it will bring employment and infrastructure to one's constituency.The task of understanding, and hopefully improving these diverse functions, falls to researchers from a very wide range of disciplinary perspectives. They embrace quantitative and qualitative approaches and, increasingly, mixed methods. They draw on the arts, such as history, and the sciences, such as pharmacology and engi