A research agenda for Primary Health Care in the state of Sao Paulo, Brazil: the ELECT study

The consolidation of Primary Health Care (PHC) requires public policies based on scientific evidence. This paper presents the ELECT study, aimed to identify priority research themes for strengthening PHC in the state of Sao Paulo, Brazil. A list of the twenty main obstacles and ten priority research themes in PHC were obtained with participation of specialists and a focus group with users. The results point to problems and research issues related to organizational management, training of professionals and managers, professional development, creation of cooperation mechanisms between health teams and computerization of resources. It is expected to stimulate debate in the context of the PHC on the role of research prioritization, its obstacles and research propositions. It also aims to encourage the adoption of more participatory models of selection of research topics.

Health research agenda; Health priorities agenda; Research prioritization; Primary Health Care; Primary Care