Take this free course and learn to educate legislators on the value of family medicine, and encourage them to support expansion of a well-trained family medicine workforce. This course, which takes about 45 minutes to complete, provides skills and practical strategies for advocating and promoting the value of family medicine.

The modules may be taken in any order and a certificate is available upon completion of each module. If you get interrupted during a module, you can pause it and resume at any time.

You can find additional free resources in the Advocacy Toolkit.

Primary Care Research Advocacy

Find out what primary care research is and how we can support primary care research funding at the Agency for Health Care Research and Quality (AHRQ) and the Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI).

1. What is primary care research? (PDF)
   
   

Advocacy Online Course

Take this free course and learn to educate legislators on the value of family medicine and primary care research, and encourage them to support expansion of a well-trained family medicine workforce. This course, which takes about 45 minutes to complete.

You do not need to be a member of the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine to take the course. 

NIH
The National Institutes of Health (NIH), a part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, is the nation’s medical research agency, supporting scientific studies that discoveries into health. 

1. Statement on the definition of behavioral and social sciences research (BSSR)

AHRQ

AHRQ is an independent agency within the Department of Health and Human Services which has a mandate to support primary care research. It has supported Practice Based Research Networks (PBRNs) and independent investigator research in health services and primary care research, among other things.

1. Funding for Center for Primary Care Research (PDF)
2. AHRQ funding request for FY2020 (PDF)
3. Maintain AHRQ as an independent agency (PDF)

PCORI

Established by the Affordable Care Act in 2010, PCORI is federally funded, yet is a non-federal organization which supports comparative effectiveness and patient-engaged research. Its authorization (along with the PECOR trust fund that supports it) is set to expire in 2019. We support its re-authorization in 2019.

Key Messages for Advocating the Importance of Primary Care and Primary Care Research

• The overall health of a population is directly linked to the strength of its primary health care system. A strong primary care system delivers higher quality of care and better health for less cost.
• Primary care provides a “medical home” and considers the whole person, as they exist in family, community and population, including multiple illnesses, preventive care, health promotion and the integration of mind and body.
• Primary care is:
  • Complex and comprehensive - where most people first bring their symptoms and health concerns and have their first touch with the health care system
  • Where people develop healing, trusting relationships with their physician and other primary care providers
• Primary care research includes:
  • Translating science into the practice of medicine and caring for patients
  • Understanding how to better organize healthcare to meet patient and population needs - evaluating innovations to provide the best healthcare to patients
  • Engaging patients, communities and practices to improve health
• The majority of healthcare takes place in primary care practices.
• And yet, the majority of research funding supports research of one specific disease, organ system, cellular or chemical process – not for primary care.
• Very little is known about important topics such as how primary care services are best organized, how to maximize and prioritize care, how to introduce and disseminate new discoveries so they work in real life and how patients can best decide how and when to seek care.