Welcome to the Center for Primary Health Care Research (CPF)! We have in just four years established a leading European center for primary care research.
By performing primary care research and development work at one site, the Clinical Research Center—a vibrant interdisciplinary research center in Malmö—we have a unique opportunity to become the most successful center in the world for primary care-based clinical and translational research.
The CPF was founded as a collaborative venture between Lund University and Region Skåne in October 2008. Since then, the number of employees has increased from 1 to 40 and the number of senior faculty members from 1 to 9 (6 professors, 3 lecturers). The CPF employs a total of 28 individuals with PhDs. Overall, it boasts 8 principal investigators in family medicine, and 3 in social epidemiology/social medicine/health economics. It is the largest and most productive family and community medicine department in Europe.
In 2012, we published or had accepted for publication a total of 143 peer-reviewed articles, some of which were published in high-impact journals such as The Lancet, The Lancet Oncology, Archives of General Psychiatry, and Circulation.
Medical science has advanced tremendously over the past five years. The molecular and genetic secrets of life have become better elucidated and we are closer than ever to individualized medicine, an important goal for primary care. The traditional divisions within medical research may, however, in some instances impede the pace of scientific discovery. Therefore, in 2011 we established The Molecular Family Medicine Laboratory, the first laboratory in Scandinavia dedicated to research in the field of primary care.
We at the CPF aim to link academia, hospitals, and primary care in order to improve cooperation between researchers and health care professionals in different settings. To achieve this, the CPF has established a network of nine Academic Knowledge Centers (AKCs) in Skåne, the Swedish county in which we are based. These centers foster a two-way flow of ideas, information, knowledge, and skills between personnel working at local health care centers and researchers at the CPF through regular visits, mentoring, and seminars, and via a Web portal.
Finally, I must emphasise that family medicine is different from other scientific disciplines. While we are dedicated to the advancement of knowledge through excellence in education and research at the undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral levels, our research must go beyond simply improving understanding of science to action that actually improves primary care. Our center is highly committed to improving the health and well-being of the residents of Skåne through community engagement, public service, and industry partnerships.
I wish to welcome you all to a vibrant research community that discusses, collaborates, and innovates in the fields of family medicine and primary care. We look forward to meeting and working with you.
Jan Sundquist, MD, PhD