Planning for health generics for the eighties

tion of Wants to be Acted On

HENRIK L. BLUM

NATURE OF GOALS

This effort is devoted to a definition and comparison of terms such as wants, goals,

GOALS, problems, targets, objectives, subobjectives, norms, levels, and standards.

Because these terms have so many divergent meanings, I will make operational one set

(and invent a few new terms) so that we can proceed into the more conceptually specific

phases of the planning process. Figure 5-1 attempts to relate all the types of goals and

their relation to problems

as interpretation of data.

so that we can proceed with our understanding of assessment

A Goals

We use the term goals

oriented concerns

to indicate any end-

in the uncapitalized state generically

Wants or "Felt" Goals

Wants are one kind of goal or end-oriented concern that reflects what people or groups

indicate that they want. Wants are different from "demands," an economic term.

Demands represent what people have obtained whether they really wanted it or not.

there is also no reason to think that all wants can ever be converted into demands for there

is rarely that kind of purchasing power. Moreover, satisfying one set of wants inevitably

seems to lead to the appearance of new ones or higher levels of want for old concerms

There is also no reason to regard wants as something sacred. Wants are the manifesta-

tions, however, often distorted or confused, of unmet valued goals or interests.

As indicated in Chapter 3, values can lead to generation of many levels of goals. (Fig

3-1). These can be the grand, free-standing GOALS such as self-fulfillment, equity, or

good health. These can, in turn, be deductively broken down into more specific
sub-GOALS such as better access to health care, better quality health care, or better

environmental safety. Equally important are the appearance of goals or wants without

reference to

higher values or GOALS. These apparently free-standing wants no doubt

relate to (1) values or (2) interests which may or may not be concordant with values

It is also important to remember that wants, in the form of problems, arise from

perceptions of situations in which valued goals are not being met to the level of our

expectation. This applies equally to perceptions of failures of one's own bodily appar

atus as it does to institutions. A problem may be intuitively or analytically converted into

a goal, e.g., "failure to get care may become a goal of "having full access to care.