Health care policy traditionally views lay people as health care consumers. This groundbreaking book, The Hidden Health Care System,  offers evidence of a new perspective: lay people are the primary providers of health care. The family, organized religion, voluntary associations, neighborhoods, and ethnic and racial groups act as a buffer between the individual and the large institutions of modern society. These small groups or "mediating structures" comprise a hidden non-professional health care system which is cost effective, integral, and enduring.
 
Originally published in 1981 - this book is a must-read classic!