• Family Medicine Research on Display at NAPCRG Annual Meeting

    Nov. 15, 2022, 8:35 a.m. News Staff — The North American Primary Care Research Group’s 50th annual meeting, to be held Nov. 18-22 at the Sheraton Phoenix Downtown in Phoenix, Ariz., promises something for practically everyone interested in learning about the impact of research on patient care and improving health outcomes. Family physicians and others who attend the meeting will have an opportunity to present findings, share interests, develop relationships for collaborating on new research and cultivate growth between up-and-coming researchers, all while earning continuing education hours.

    physician researchers

    More than 600 sessions are scheduled for this year’s meeting, including several dozen presentations from three organizations affiliated with the Academy: the AAFP National Research Network, HealthLandscape and the Robert Graham Center for Policy Studies in Family Medicine and Primary Care. Many presentations include findings that family physicians will be able to immediately implement in clinical practice, while others lay the foundation for additional research, policies or advocacy.

    Featured Research

    AAFP NRN presentations of particular interest to FPs include a poster presentation on the prevalence and treatment of adult ADHD in female-identifying populations; an oral presentation on completed research designed to help clinicians understand and address barriers to patients initiating buprenorphine treatment and practices referring patients to a randomized study; and a workshop in which participants will discuss questions, develop strategies for engagement and learn best practices for working with advisory groups to strengthen research.

    HealthLandscape research sessions that should grab the attention of FPs include a preconference workshop that discusses the importance of geography to population health and demonstrates the ways health care professionals can use population health resources to inform their practice activities, a poster presentation based on completed research that focuses on identifying high-need areas related to behavioral health and potential equity issues involving access to care, and an oral presentation that examines the impact of COVID-19 on influenza vaccination rates at Health Resources and Services Administration-supported health centers.

    Story Highlights

    The Graham Center’s research offerings include a pair of oral presentations highlighting the impact that training has on specialty choice; an oral presentation that examines the association between COVID-19 outcomes and the Community Health Index, a tool that combines measures primary care supply, public health preparedness and social assets at the county level; a poster that outlines the creation of the first national scorecard on primary care; and a workshop that examines the use of surveys from the Council of Academic Family Medicine Educational Research Alliance in conducting medical education research.

    RapSDI and Graham Center Representation

    Three family physicians previously selected as Family Medicine Discovers Rapid Cycle Scientific Discovery and Innovation initiative scholars will also give presentations at the meeting.

    2020 RapSDI scholar Vijay Singh, M.D., M.P.H., M.S., a clinical assistant professor in the Department of Family Medicine, Internal Medicine/Hospital Medicine and Emergency Medicine at the University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor, will deliver an oral presentation, “Intimate Partner Violence Perpetration and Gun Possession Prevalence and Correlates Among Men in Primary Care,” based on research he started with the initiative.

    Iman Majd, M.D., M.S., L.Ac., director of the Osher Clinic for Integrative Medicine and a clinical assistant professor in the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Washington, Seattle, and a 2021 RapSDI scholar, will give a poster presentation on the use of five-needle auricular acupuncture for pain management.

    And fellow 2021 scholar Sanjay Batish, M.D., founder and owner of Batish Family Medicine in Leland, N.C., will have three presentations:

    • an oral presentation, “SaFETy Score as a Predictor of Gun Violence in Adolescent-Young Adult Patients in a Primary Care Setting”;
    • a related poster presentation on the association of adverse childhood experiences and gun violence exposure; and
    • a separate poster session on the experiences of working with MedServe, a two-year AmeriCorps fellowship for college graduates who pursue careers in primary care medicine.

    NAPCRG will also feature multiple presentations by current and former Graham Center learners, including

    More Research Available

    Individuals can search for specific topics or view every available session being presented at this year’s meeting — and at every other annual meeting dating to 2007 — using NAPCRG’s session search tool.

    NAPCRG will hold its 51st annual meeting at the Hilton San Francisco Union Square from Oct. 30-Nov. 3, 2023. Details about the meeting and the 2023 Practice-Based Research Network Conference are on the group’s Future Conferences webpage.