Background General practice’s population health and public health role is being promoted internationally to improve health outcomes. 1-6 This Thesis aims to: • Describe and evaluate projects which are relevant to exploring the interface of population health and public health with Australian rural general practice; and • Describe and evaluate projects which can increase population health and public health expertise and capacity amongst our future rural general practice workforce. Methods This Thesis uses a descriptive design. A series of research papers published in the peer reviewed literature are presented in each chapter. These papers are used as case studies to explore the aims of this Thesis. A variety of quantitative and qualitative methods have been used to conduct research in remote communities of the Northern Territory, rural South Australia and New South Wales from 1992 to 2005. Results Public health and population health can interface with Australian rural general practice in sustainable models described in case studies within this Thesis. There is a continuum of roles in this interface from population health in practice, public health, ‘new’ public health and leadership. Population health activities include screening and promotion of lifestyle factors to patients.7 Public health activities can be developed to extend the reach of health programs to the broader community. This may include participation in population based surveillance systems and health promotion projects. Promoters of ‘new’ public health 8,9 support an expansion of public health’s scope to include advocating social development through community participation and empowerment. Leadership can extend to policy development and liaison with general practice, population health and public health practitioners to promote collaborative models of health care. A sustainable model of increasing rural workforce recruitment via developing workforce capacity in public health and population health has been developed and evaluated as part of this Thesis. Conclusions This Thesis presents rural Australian case studies demonstrating integration of population health and public health roles with general practice. Vertically integrated workforce models have been developed, as part of this Thesis, which can facilitate recruitment to the rural health workforce. In the long term, educational models have been developed and evaluated as part of this Thesis. These models can increase the population health and public health expertise and capacity of this workforce. / MD Doctorate
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/232852 |
| Date | January 2006 |
| Creators | Fraser, John |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | http://www.newcastle.edu.au/copyright.html, Copyright 2006 John Fraser |
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