[Evaluation of the primary health care reform: preventive practices and inequalities].

Objective: To evaluate primary care reform (PCR) in Barcelona during the year 2000 using 3 preventive practices: anti-smoking advice, blood pressure measurement, and flu vaccination. Any inequalities of gender, age, or social class in receiving these practices are also assessed.

Design: Cross-sectional, descriptive, observational study.

Setting: Barcelona Health Survey, primary health care, Spain, year 2000.

Participants: Non-institutionalised residents of the city of Barcelona over 15 years old in the year 2000 (N=10,000 people).

Main Measurements: The indicators used were the prevalences of receiving the 3 practices. Descriptive and multivariate logistic regression analyses were performed.

Results: Receiving the preventive practices studied is greater in areas where PCR was established longer, compared to the centres that had not begun the reforms (63.7% as opposed to 53.2%, respectively). Anti-smoking advice, for women, is less frequent in the more disadvantaged classes (odds ratio [OR] =0.72; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.55-1).

Conclusions: PCR is a factor associated with carrying out preventive practices. No significant disparities between social class or gender were found for those who received the preventive practices.