Progressing rural and remote health research

Leaders of Australia’s rural and remote health research communities met in Brisbane in June and reached general agreement about the way forward for their sector over the next five years. The 80 invited participants at the second Rural and Remote Health Scientific Symposium reflected positively on progress made since the first such Symposium two years ago. They recognised the fact that the sector has demonstrated its capacity to produce quality research outcomes – agreed to be the most critical characteristic of all for research efforts. There is high degree of trust and coherence in the sector but there is still the need for the development and maintenance of stronger partnerships: between researchers and the rural and remote community, researchers and clinicians, and researchers and policymakers. One of the highlights of the Symposium was the opportunity it provided for some ‘succession planning’ in rural and remote health research. The session for emerging researchers was regarded as valuable and a significant success. Participants in the Symposium believe that rural and remote health research should be recognised as an important, competitive and valued part of Australia’s research sector overall. Since the emergence of ‘rural and remote health’ as a discreet entity in Australia some 20 years ago, its research sector has moved from being largely defensive and focused on rural and remote deficits, to one with an emphasis on building on the strengths of rural and remote lifestyles, people and services. The strength and confidence of its research sector is attributable in part to the coherence of the rural/ remote health entity as a whole, to which some well-established and reputable organisations have contributed – such as the four that auspiced the Symposium. With increasing confidence, capacity and understanding, the rural and remote health research communities are now more outward-looking, ready to challenge themselves and to be involved in current policy issues. Increasingly, their focus is on helping to transform the health sector rather than merely describing it. As well as strengthening its partnerships, another major challenge for the rural and remote health research sector over the next five years is to increase its responsiveness, both in terms of the science and substance of its agenda and how it seeks the adoption of results into practice and policy. The Symposium was provided with updates on research in critical areas such as the health of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, mental health in remote areas (including some consideration of suicide), the capacity of e-health to improve services and outcomes, creative models of care and the importance of cohort studies – including those relating to complex interventions. The central recommendation from the Symposium was that there should be a high-level organisation with the capacity to coordinate the rural and remote health research effort and build from its findings into practice and policy. Discussions about this at the Symposium were in terms of a virtual ‘national institute’, but further consideration since the event has seen the emergence of a proposal for a Partnership Centre for Better Health. This recognises the existence of the Partnerships Centres program being developed through the National Health and Medical Research Council and the rural and remote networking about it that pre-dated the Symposium. The Symposium’s main recommendation strengthens the call for rural and remote health research interests to be specifically recognised in the Partnership Centres program. The proposed Partnership Centre would be virtual so as to maintain the dispersed nature of rural and remote health research capacity, not centralising that capacity in one particular place or organisation. The overall focus of the Centre’s work would be strongly interdisciplinary. The Centre would synthesise rural and remote health research, enhancing the effectiveness and profile of the research. It would foster high-quality research on such matters as service improvement, workforce issues, epidemiology, health systems design and complex interventions for needy groups. It would encourage links between researchers, communities and policy makers. It would collect and analyse data, identify research gaps, bringing together in an inclusive fashion the agencies involved in rural and remote health research. It would pool qualitative evidence on the social determinants of The Australian Primary Health Care Research Institute (APHCRI), the Primary Health Care and Research Information Service (PHCRIS), the Australian Rural Health Education Network (ARHEN) and the National Rural Health Alliance (NRHA). The Symposium was also supported by the Department of Health and Ageing and Queensland Health. Aust. J. Rural Health (2010) 18, 134–136