Epidemiology and primary health care network: Research strategy and support to local services

In the Brazil, epidemiology is supporting primary health care (PHC) assessment. In 2005, we carried out a baseline study to evaluate the performance of Family Health Program (FHP) at the big size cities, in two regions that enrolled the research team, officer staff and PHC workers. Two meetings detailed the study methodology, and trained the participants from 41 municipalities on PHC assessment. The local staff helped the field workers, facilitating the transportation, the contact with health managers, health workers and population, the access to hotels, Internet, and telephone. In a third meeting, the preliminary results of the study were presented to the local staff that brought to light their experiences on PHC assessment. The network was fed by telephone, mail, e-mail, and a web page. The network was supported by tools like software to study PHC centers utilization and a CD with presentations, questionnaires, papers, data sets and Internet links. A guideline helped to organize a local unity to PHC evaluation.
The study evaluates 240 PHC centers in 41 municipalities over 100,000 inhabitants in two Southern states and in five Northeastern states. The data collection enrolled officers the health department, around 5,000 PHC workers, around 26,000 PHC consultations, and around 16,000 population interviews. The FW was completed in 5 months and the study in only 12 months. The network trained 453 people from all the cities.  
The study identified structural problems of the PHC centers and a better performance of the FHP in comparison with the traditional centers. The network was an organizational and communicative strategy, interconnecting partners from the university and the PHC services, and translating the research into practice. It made the research relevant to everyday primary care. At 2008 will be done a fourth meeting to strength the network and keep the PHC workers and managers informed on research findings.