This dissertation compares the efforts of Cuba and Costa Rica to provide primary health care (PHC) through the integration of health and development planning, regionalization of health services, and community participation. The study reports the delivery of PHC and the health planning processes through which PHC has been organized. The central questions examined are: (1) whether Cuba and Costa Rica have delivered PHC to the extent they claim? (2) what role, if any, the integration of economic and health planning, regionalization of health services, and community participation have played in the delivery of PHC? and (3) whether the delivery of PHC is dependent on health planning and, if so, what type? The purpose has been to establish the relationship between health planning and the delivery of PHC in the two Latin American countries with best health indices. Both have successfully implemented PHC, but their socioeconomic structures are different: Cuba is a socialist centrally planned economy and Costa Rica is a capitalist, market economy.