Establishment of research in primary health care in Greece. Experiences of Greek-Swedish collaboration.
The last few decades have seen great changes in health care and medical care in Greece, as well as in the Greek university system. A new law on health care and medical care has come into force, a new university hospital and new health centres have been built, and a faculty of medicine has been established at Heraklion in Crete. People are speaking of a change of paradigm. Simultaneous with the introduction of the new national health care system, the Department of Family and Social Medicine (DFSM) in Crete started a major project on public health, known as the Primary Health Care and Nutrition Programs (abbreviated as PPD). The purpose was to chart the state of health and living conditions of the Cretan population in the period 1986-1990. Cooperation in research and training began between DFSM and the Dalby Health Sciences Centre, Lund University in 1987. This was natural since there was a shared interest in research into family medicine and social medicine. In addition, a new Health Care Act had come into force in Sweden in 1982. The establishment phase of primary health care started in Sweden at the end of the 1960s. In the 1970s health centres were established, along with research and training in family medicine, in a way that is comparable in many respects to the situation in which Crete found itself a decade later. This paper concerns the organization and implementation of PPD and the research cooperation between Greek and Swedish institutions. This can be seen as an expression of the internationalization of research for which the two universities have striven.
Fioretos
M
M
Department of Family and Social Medicine, Crete University, Greece.
Scherstén
B
B
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D006115:Greece; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D007391:International Cooperation; D011320:Primary Health Care; D016730:Program Development; D012106:Research; D013548:Sweden