(Health Targets and Implementation Committee, 1988), may provide useful summaries of a country's demography and evidence of health problems. As national documents, they may also contribute to the decision to address a particular health issue. It must be remembered, however, that these documents are political in nature and that issues may therefore be exaggerated or downplayed depending on current political agendas. Also, as political documents, the extent to which they reflect felt need depends on the extent to which meaningful participation processes were incorporated into the policy-making process. If such participation processes are largely nonexistent, the documents are likely to reflect only nor¬mative or comparative needs.