WONCA Working Party on Research Activity Plan for the 2016-18

The WONCA Working Party on Research's new Chair, Prof Felicity Goodyear-Smith, reports on the meeting in Rio's development of activity plans for the next two years.

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At the October meeting of the Working Party in Rio, a number of activities were planned to take place over the next two years (2017 to 2019).

1 Comparative research around primary health care policy implementation

This will be a further development of the panel project comparing primary care systems, first proposed by Felicity Goodyear-Smith at WONCA World Cancun, and implemented by the WP-R since. We plan to progress from describing healthcare systems to exploring cross-country comparisons of how the primary care team operates within the community, connections with social determinants and inter-sectorial collaborations (eg social services). This will reference Starfield’s pillars of primary care (first-contact, continuity, comprehensive and coordinated care) for universal provision of affordable, accessible, equitable effective health services. Key members of WP-R will work with the Regional Presidents and convenors of WONCA conferences in their regions to arrange panels to present at these meetings. The panellists will be drawn from people identified as already attending these meetings who can represent their countries. Felicity Goodyear-Smith and Chris van Weel will help with the liaison and organisation of these events.

2 Research Methodology Book

Felicity Goodyear-Smith and Bob Mash will edit this book on how to do research for emerging researchers, which will serve as a companion to our International Perspectives of Primary Care Research. Taylor & Francis are interested in publishing it. We will try and negotiate a cheap sales price for the online version to make it accessible. It will look at research through the primary care lenses, with regard to the mix of research questions, approaches (eg patient and person-centred care, practice-based research), methods (including mixed quantitative and qualitative methodologies) and outcome measures (eg functioning, quality of life), and include how to get funding section. What makes research PC research? How is PC research taught in specific countries? The North American Primary Care Research Group (NAPCRG) Methodology Committee will also collaborate on and contribute to the book.

3 Scientific writing & research capacity-building workshops

Members of the WP-R will run scientific writing workshops at regional WONCA conferences. These will teach the generic skills needed to write research proposals, ethics applications, reports and papers. The first of these is planned for WONCA Europe in Prague 2017 (to be run by Mehmet Akman, Christos Lionis, Karen Flegg).

4 Research Policy Paper

The WP-R will prepare a policy paper on the importance of primary care research. This will be targeted specifically at WHO, and be a contemporary update of the Kingston Declaration. A group of members (including Bob Phillips, Chris van Weel, Obianma Onya , Felicity Goodyear-Smith) will work together to draft this. It will also draw on the SAPC statement Academic Primary Care - Now More Than Ever
 
Felicity Goodyear-Smith, Chair, WONCA Working Party on Research, November 2016.