Traditional, complementary and alternative medicine (or heterodox health care)
functions as the primary source of health care for a majority of populations in low-income
countries. The World Health Organization has promoted the integration of heterodox healthcare
practices and practitioners into formal state and local biomedical health-care systems.
Heretofore, the literature has assumed the beneficence of this policy in reducing health-care
disparity, without assessing the outcomes of this policy’s implementation. This research examines
the impact of health-care integration policy on local health care in communities in four
municipalities in the Philippines. Communities in two municipalities that implemented health-care
integration (top-down and bottom-up) were compared with two municipalities that did
not implement health-care integration. A qualitative design of data collection was utilised.
Convenience samples (n ¼ 500) of community members, community leaders, health-care providers
and key policy actors participated in semi-structured interviews and focus groups to assess the
changes in community health-care systems and in community health-care access following healthcare
integration. The assumptions of beneficence of health-care integration are not supported by
this research. Furthermore, this research suggests that health-care integration may not be
beneficial to communities if implemented in a manner that ignores the particular needs of a given
local context.