The next (and 70th) meeting of the European General Practice Research Network (EGPRN) will take place in Plovdiv (Bulgaria), from 6 to 9 May 2010. The theme of this meeting is ‘Children in General Practice’. It refers to the primary aim for timely and high quality health care for every child and the related general practitioners’ activities.
Children are vital for the future strength and success of any society because they are our guarantee for the future. There are wide variations in young people’s health in the European region, and there are also wide variations in the organization of the health care delivered to children. The family doctor looks after the family as a unit of care. This includes not only curative care but also disease prevention and health promotion. The aim of the 70th EGPRN meeting is to promote, develop and advance research and care of children and offer an exchange of information, new ideas and strategies between GPs and health professionals.
The theme of the last EGPRN meeting in the marvellous city of Dubrovnik (Croatia) last October was ‘Multimorbidity’. It was a very successful meeting with a lot of very interesting oral presentations and posters and many attendees. The abstracts of this meeting can be found on http://www.egprn.org/01database%20of%20abstracts.htm. In Dubrovnik, a new chair of EGPRN has been elected. For the first time in EGPRN’s history, the chair is woman. Congratulations to Eva Hummers-Pradier (Germany).
A few weeks earlier, at the WONCA EU meeting in Basel in September, the final version of the Research Agenda for General Practice/Family Medicine and Primary Health Care in Europe has been launched. The main aim of this very important and high level project is to provide guidance for further research and research related policy.
The Research Agenda is now a reference paper:
Summarizing the existing evidence on aspects of the definition of GP/FM and related tasks of GPs, and it’s meaning for researchers and policy makers;
Highlighting research needs and evidence gaps, i.e. for the purpose of research planning and funding or for funding decisions;
Providing a basis for proactive, positive action thereby influencing health and research policy, i.e. applying/lobbying for research funds; and
Indicating issues of imminent importance for countries with a low capacity for research in view of a development plan for GP/FM research in a start-up setting.
The Research Agenda can be downloaded as pdf from www.egprn.org.
The EGPRN Executive Board and all the members of the network look forward to welcoming you next May to Plovdiv! Future meetings will take place in Zurich (Switzerland) in October 2010 and in Nice (France) in May 2011.