
By 2030 we expect a significant increase in the ageing of the population and people living with long term conditions such as cancer in the Central and Eastern Sydney (CES) areas.
At the same time, we expect a shift to providing more health care in the community.
The Central and Eastern Sydney Primary and Community Health Research Consortium commenced in 2016 as a response to these challenges. It brings together two local health districts (Sydney and South Eastern Sydney) as well as the co-terminous local primary health network (Central and Eastern Sydney) under one partnership as the Central and Eastern Sydney Primary and Community Health Cohort/Resource (CES-P&CH). From here, we inform primary and community services planning, program development and evaluation.
Our project is a collaboration with the UNSW Centre for Primary Health Care and Equity (CPHCE). It answers health service relevant questions based on data from 30.6K people living in Central and Eastern Sydney between 2006 and 2020.
Recent studies based on our ‘Resource’ of 12 NSW and national datasets and 215.6 million health records include predictors of health service use amongst older people, understanding the relationship between social isolation, health service use and health outcomes, and the health of carers. The Resource has also led to competitive research grant applications, as well as early career and PhD student projects.
The CES-P&CH Cohort/Resource has funding and ethics approval until June 2024. This includes funding for a research translation officer. In this time we will continue our current partner-led studies, developed through the annual research priorities fora.