Using a community-oriented primary care (COPC) approach, the format for this interprofessional rural rotation was a public health focused team project based in a local health department and primary care setting. The target audience included fourth-year dental students, fourth-year undergraduate students in imaging science, second-year master of public health students, third-year medical students enrolled in the MD/MPH program, second-year nurse practitioner students, fourth-year pharmacy students, second-year MSN nursing students, and first-year PhD students. The specific learning objectives of the curriculum were drawn from emphasis areas of the Interprofessional Education Collaborative's competency domains and included the development of students' knowledge to function as a member of an interprofessional team to (1) engage diverse health care professionals, (2) communicate with team members to clarify each member's responsibility in executing components of a public health intervention, (3) choose effective communication tools and techniques, (4) integrate knowledge and experience of other professions, and (5) engage themselves and others to constructively manage disagreements.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCommunity-oriented primary care (COPC) is a model of health care delivery that tightly integrates primary care and public health. This model of care, applied around the globe, could be more widely adopted in the United States as clinical delivery systems respond to the growing demand for population health management, which has been driven largely by various provisions of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). For that purpose, there is need for changes in capacitating health professionals and changes in organizational structures that will address the needs and health priorities of the population, considering individual care management in the context of population health for a defined population.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPrimary care and public health have run on parallel tracks with scarce points of contact or coordination in community action to improve the population's health. If community health is defined as the "health of individuals and groups in a defined community, determined by the interaction of personal and familial factors and by the socioeconomic-cultural and physical environments" and of community intervention is defined as local action to improve community health, primary care and public health are the key players to implement this aim. However, their actions should take into account other local actors, including the population.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe community-oriented primary care (COPC) approach, implemented in various countries by family physicians, general practitioners, and other primary care workers, integrates clinical medicine with aspects of public health. A process of 20 years of training health professionals (40-hour workshop) by the professional association of family physicians (Catalan Society of Family and Community Medicine), training family medicine residents and giving support to health teams in Catalonia, Spain, generated a present group of 30 primary care teams involved in community health projects. This paper describes and analyzes factors related to changes in the health system, the role of family medicine in Spain, and to features of the COPC approach and its training methods as elements that narrow the gap between training and practice.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFRev Panam Salud Publica
August 2007
The community-oriented primary care (COPC) model strives to efficiently distribute, organize, and systematize existing health care resources. In addition to promoting healthy lifestyles within the community, the COPC model enables the health care team and the community to cooperate in identifying and prioritizing health issues. Together they develop and implement prevention and treatment plans for those priority areas.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: The association of butyrylcholinesterase (BuChE) with Alzheimer disease and the association of this disease with cardiovascular risk factors raise interest in the association of BuChE activity with cardiovascular risk factors and mortality.
Methods: A baseline cross-sectional study was conducted between 1985 and 1987, encompassing residents > or =50 years of age living in a Jewish neighborhood in western Jerusalem. Interviews were followed by examinations and nonfasting blood sampling (available for 1807 participants).
The long-term health sequelae of the Holocaust were assessed 40-50 years later in the framework of a Jerusalem community health study. Holocaust survivors (N = 288, mean age = 67.6 years) and European-born Jews, not exposed to the Holocaust (N = 486, mean age = 68.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFStudy Objective: In light of contradictory studies relating to the health effects of siesta, we investigated the practice of siesta in relation to all-cause and cardiovascular mortality, controlling for recognized predictors of mortality.
Design: Prospective study with 9 to 11 years of mortality follow-up.
Setting: West Jerusalem neighborhood of Kiryat Yovel.
Aim: To investigate night and total sleep duration in relation to all-cause, cardiovascular, and non-cardiovascular mortality, controlling for recognized predictors of mortality in a population where the practice of siesta is common.
Methods: Our community-based sample included 1,842 residents (1,001 women) of a West Jerusalem neighborhood, aged 50 years and over. The study was conducted in the 1985-87 period, with a response rate of 85%.
The Community Medicine approach, focussed on an active assessment of health status with a subsequent provision of health care directed to the community as a whole, is recommended today as a means for addressing the fragmentation of health services. In parallel, in recent years the Community Medicine approach has been incorporated in a growing number of health academic institutions. In this paper it is suggested that the teaching of Community Medicine should be an active process in a practical environmental in which students could be involved with real life situations.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCommunity-oriented primary care (COPC) developed and was tested over nearly 3 decades in the Hadassah Community Health Center in Jerusalem, Israel. Integration of public health responsibility with individual-based clinical management of patients formed the cornerstone of the COPC approach. A family medicine practice and a mother and child preventive service provided the frameworks for this development.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Elevated plasma total homocysteine level has been associated with cardiovascular disease in many studies, mostly in Europe and North America. Data on persons from other areas and on associations with overall mortality are sparse.
Objective: To determine the relation of plasma homocysteine level to all-cause and cause-specific mortality.
Int J Obes Relat Metab Disord
March 1996
Objective: To study the prevalence and correlates of overweight and obesity in Jerusalem, and changes over a 15-17 year period.
Design: Two cross-sectional surveys in 1970 and in 1986, among residents aged 50 years and more in a defined neighbourhood.
Subjects: The study samples comprised 1267 individuals in 1970 and 1858 in 1986.
Change in blood pressure levels over time was investigated in Jerusalem, in two cross-sectional surveys in 1970 and in 1986 among residents of a neighbourhood aged 50 years and more. The study population comprised 1397 individuals in 1970 and 1858 in the 1986. Age-adjusted mean systolic and diastolic blood pressure levels were lower in 1986 than in 1970 by 6.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: A workshop on community-oriented primary care (COPC) has been integrated into Hebrew University's family practice residency program for several years. The participants of the first three workshops did an evaluation to assess subsequent application of the COPC approach.
Methods: The main objectives of the 45-hour workshop are: a) to learn the principles and practice of COPC as illustrated by the Hadassah Community Health Center programs, and b) to learn skills required in the COPC programs' various stages of development.
Background: Benign prostatic hypertrophy has a high prevalence in men aged > or = 50, but there is little information on the correlates of obstructive symptoms.
Methods: The prevalence and correlates of reported prostatic symptoms in men aged > or = 50 years were studied in a community survey in the Kiryat Hayovel neighbourhood of Jerusalem in 1985-1987. Five prostate-related questions were asked.
Background: There is evidence that occupational factors that cause psychological strain can affect physical and mental health, but findings are not consistent.
Methods: Work satisfaction was used as a convenient global index of job-related psychological strain. Relationships with general, physical and emotional health, appraised by the use of questions, were examined in workers aged > or = 50 years in a longitudinal community health study in Jerusalem.
The CHAD program, a community health program for the control of cardiovascular risk factors, was planned in 1969 as an experiment in community-oriented primary care (COPC) with the aim of assessing feasibility and effectiveness. The program was instituted in a family practice in Jerusalem in 1970, and has provided a working demonstration of the integration of community health care with the care of individuals and families. Effectiveness was evaluated by comparing changes in risk factor status with those in a comparison population.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Clin Epidemiol
June 1992
A battery of simple questions designed to measure physical health, in terms of ability to perform physical activities, was appraised in 1839 men and women aged greater than or equal to 50 years in a community survey in Jerusalem. The number of "Yes" answers to six questions, five of which could be skipped if the first one was answered positively, was found to be a satisfactory index, with a high degree of consistency-reliability in the total sample (Cronbach's alpha coefficient = 0.97) and in subgroups categorized by sex, age, education, or father's region of birth.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWork-health relationships were examined cross-sectionally in 1886 men and women aged greater than or equal to 50 years in Jerusalem in 1985-1987, in the third round of a multipurpose longitudinal community health study. The main occupational variables were employment status, reasons for not working, and satisfaction with work. Sex and age were controlled in all comparisons.
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