2019 Research Priorities Forum - Research Priorities for Central and Eastern Sydney

Thirty-four people attended the half day research priorities forum on Tuesday 16 July 2019 organised by the Centre for Primary Health Care and Equity, UNSW in collaboration with Sydney Local Health District (SLHD), South Eastern Sydney Local Health District (SESLHD) and Central and Eastern Sydney Primary Health Network (CESPHN).

The purpose of the day was: to build on the Central and Eastern Sydney (CES) primary and community health research priorities identified at the previous workshops; highlight existing research using the CES Primary and Community Heath Cohort/Linkage Resource (CES-P&CH) reflect on and identify CES primary and community health research priorities that could be undertaken over the next 1-3 years using CES-P&CH with/without enhancements to meet the identified priorities in CES; and develop an program of work using CES-P&CH for 2019 onwards.

The workshop was chaired by Professor Mark Harris, Executive Director, CPHCE and started with an update by A/Prof Margo Barr, CES-P&CH Project Leader at CPHCE including recent overseas conference presentations from the research by management team members. Dr Jessica Stewart, Director at Families and Community Services Insight, Analysis and Research (FACSIAR) then gave the keynote address highlighting the development of the outcomes frameworks and the work that has been done using the framework. This was followed by partner updates and research priorities presented by Mr Tony Jackson, Director, Primary and Integrated Health for SESLHD, Ms Lou-Anne Blunden, Executive Director, Clinical Services Integration & Population Health for SLHD and Dr Michael Moore, Chief Executive Officer for CESPHN (see links to the presentations below).

The majority of the forum was dedicated to research priority identification followed by small group discussions on the top 6 topics. The 6 topics selected were: Role of Primary Health Care in reducing avoidable hospitalisations; Weight/obesity, Data gaps and spatial analysis, Homelessness, vulnerable populations social support and housing, Oral Health, and Carers. Three to four research questions will be developed for each of these priority areas—applying primary health care, feasibility and policy relevance lenses—and 4 to 5 will be selected as the CES-P&CH research projects for 2019/2020.

The forum closed with a presentation from Dr Yalchin Oytam, Manager of Data Analytics, NSW Ministry of Health who highlighted what is translation is possible using the Primary Care Data Linkage Data set.

Please see links below for the presentation, program and summary report.