Use of Primary Care Settings to Collect Epidemiological Data

Epidemiological information can be collected in a variety of ways, each with benefits and limitations. An appealing method is to use primary care as a setting, either to examine volunteers or to recruit them, or both. The potential for using this setting varies depending on the structure of the provision of clinical care, and these vary widely from country to country. This chapter considers the various ways in which primary care can be used as a source of epidemiological data and compares and contrasts these with more traditional means of collection.