> Publications & presentations > PHC RIS infonet > April 2006 > Research Capacity Building Initiative

Research Capacity Building Initiative

Mount Isa Centre for Rural and Remote Health, JCU

Is it all talk? Relationships, Relevance and Realism: Building bridges between Primary Health Care Research and Policy

It is becoming increasingly important that the research undertaken within the primary health sector is relevant to policy, so much so that the theme of the last GP & PHC Research Conference was Getting Research Right for policy and practice. But how can this be achieved? In 2004 the Mount Isa Centre for Rural and Remote Health (MICRRH) held its first policy workshop aimed at informing primary health practitioners and researchers about the policy making process. In February 2006 we held another workshop (with support from the Queensland PHCRED Tripartite) aimed at addressing three main issues: relationships, relevance and realism.

This workshop was facilitated by Dr Anne Tiernan from The Policy Practice, a Brisbane based consultancy firm who provide professional policy analysis, development, research and educational services across a range of public policy sectors. Dr Tiernan based the workshop around these three key areas and provided ample time for the discussion of how these concepts apply to the health sector.

Attendees included representatives of various Divisions of General Practice and Primary Health Care, Health Workforce Queensland, independent health workforce consultants as well as members from the five PHCRED partners in Queensland. Most participants found the workshop extremely informative and were very positive about incorporating some of the many strategies discussed during the day into their professional lives.

Of particular value has been the increased understanding of the drivers for policy decision making and the identification of several strategies for interacting with policy makers to maximise the effect of our dissemination activities.

Some of the strategies identified were:

• Building relationships with other stakeholders to ensure a coordinated approach and message,
• Actively disseminating research to policy makers (e.g. through publishing with the Australian Policy Online (http://www.apo.org.au/) or generating policy bulletins)
• Being aware of the policy implications of your research from the start.

Don't wait to the end of a project to take advantage of opportunities to influence relevant policies.

For further information contact:
Dr Stephanie De La Rue
Research Coordinator
Ph: 07 4744 7913
Mobile: 0427 659 788

Northern Rivers University Department of Rural Health (NRUDRH)

University of Sydney Faculty of Medicine/Southern Cross University School of Health and Applied Science

One of the primary activities of the Northern Rivers University Department of Rural Health (NRUDRH) RCBI program for 2006 will be the development of a series of research methods workshops called Walking Through Research.

This series of workshops will be practically oriented and taught with a hands-on applied approach. The workshops will take participants through the process of conducting health research, starting with identifying a research question and undertaking a literature review, then proceeding through the development of appropriate methodology, data collection and management, data analysis, and writing for publication. Proposal writing, oral presentation, and project management skills will also be included.

Participants will be required to bring a research idea to the program and work through the development and implementation of the project over the course of the workshops. Workshops will be intensive, with small numbers to maximise support for each participant.

Recognising that research capacity building for Aboriginal health providers may need a different approach, we retained an Aboriginal Research Fellow in June 2005. She has established an internal advisory group for Aboriginal health research and capacity building undertaken by the NRUDRH and a network of service providers interested in research. In determining the best approach and location for the Walking Through Research for Aboriginal researchers, we will be guided by the Aboriginal advisory group and will recruit workshop participants from the Aboriginal Health research network

For further information contact:
Hudson Birden
PHC RED Program Coordinator
& Senior Lecturer in Public Health
Phone: 02 6620 7603
E: hudsonb@med.usyd.edu.au