In 2024, the article Assessing the impact of Canadian primary care research and researchers was published. The team who wrote it demonstrated that Canada has a group of primary care researchers who are widely cited in the medical literature. The article suggests that their work is relevant and of high quality. It concludes that greater investment in primary care research could accelerate the necessary improvements in primary care policy and practice across the country.
Our colleagues France Légaré and the late Pierre Pluye are among the fifty most-quoted Canadian primary care researchers in Canada. Robert Reid, author of the Learning Health System Action Framework, is also on this list. It’s encouraging to see that the LHS, patient partnership, collaborative research and scaling up, to name but a few, are attracting significant interest.
- Monica Aggarwal MPA PhD
- Brian Hutchison MD MSc CCFP FCFP
- Alan Katz MBChB MSc CCFP FCFP
- Sabrina T. Wong RN PhD
- Emily Gard Marshall MSc PhD
- Steve Slade
Article “Assessing the impact of Canadian primary care research and researchers”
Source: cfp.ca
Objective
To describe the citation impact and characteristics of Canadian primary care researchers and research publications.
Design
Citation analysis.
Setting
Canada.
Participants
A total of 266 established Canadian primary care researchers.
Main outcome measures
The 50 most cited primary care researchers in Canada were identified by analyzing data from the Scopus database. Various parameters, including the number of publications and citations, research themes, Scopus h index, content analysis, journal impact factors, and field-weighted citation impact for their publications, were assessed. Information about the characteristics of these researchers was collected using the Google search engine.
Results
On average, the 50 most cited primary care researchers produced 51.1 first-author publications (range 13 to 249) and were cited 1864.32 times (range 796 to 9081) over 29 years. Twenty-seven publications were cited more than 500 times. More than half of the researchers were men (60%). Most were clinician scientists (86%) with a primary academic appointment in family medicine (86%) and were affiliated with 5 universities (74%). Career duration was moderately associated with the number of first-author publications (0.35; P=.013). Most research focused on family practice, while some addressed health and health care issues (eg, continuing professional education, pharmaceutical policy).
Conclusion
Canada is home to a cadre of primary care researchers who are highly cited in the medical literature, suggesting that their work is of high quality and relevance. Building on this foundation, further investments in primary care research could accelerate needed improvements in Canadian primary care policy and practice.