Community-oriented primary care (COPC): An approach for the Fahrettin Altay community

Background: The World Health Organization has recently called for the renewal of Primary Health Care. This requires the integration of clinical medicine and public health. Community Oriented Primary Care (COPC), is based on such integration. The Legacy Heritage International MPH Program at the Hebrew University-Hadassah in Israel, with more than 30 years of experience includes a COPC workshop as a core course. Objective: To describe the learning experience of developing the COPC approach for the community of Fahrettin Altay (a district of Izmir, Turkey),

Methods: Grounded in a problem-based learning methodology, students from 16 countries participated in the workshop and worked in groups resembling actual teams, and using real data from selected communities gathered specifically (prior to arriving in Israel) for the workshop. The Fahrettin Altay group defined and characterized the community, analyzed its health needs, followed a systematic process of prioritization to select a health condition, planned a detailed analysis of the selected condition, and developed an intervention program through primary care, and planned its evaluation.    

Results: Socio-demographic, epidemiological and health-system characteristics of Fahrettin Altay were defined. Prioritization of health problems was based on the magnitude, feasibility and predicted effectiveness of evidence-based interventions,. As a result, hypertension was chosen for intervention. A community household survey was designed to assess the prevalence and knowledge, attitudes, beliefs and practices (KABP) of hypertension. A cross-sectional survey, in-depth interviews and focus groups were planned to assess the KABP of health care provider's (HCPs). Activities focusing on promoting healthy life-styles, increasing the number of controlled hypertensive patients and improving the KABP of HCPs were planned. A program trial was designed to evaluate the effectiveness of the intervention.

Conclusions:  The workshop allowed the students to integrate core and interdisciplinary public health competences acquired during the MPH training to effectively design a COPC project.