Mission
The delivery of primary health care has a clear general basis: (1) open access, implying that everyone can present any problem at any time, and (2) continuity of care, with responsibility in all phases of the health care process. Accordingly, in primary care, the spectrum of patients and
health problems encountered is essentially different from referred care, and the ongoing improvement and innovation of clinical and health care interventions presents a major challenge.

Prevention, diagnosis, treatment and prognosis
This programme concentrates on clinical research in prevention, diagnosis, treatment and prognosis, with patient health as the central outcome variable. The emphasis lies on diagnostic and intervention studies, including the innovation of methods for diagnostic research. In primary
care, the most frequently presented signs, symptoms and diseases belong to five organ systems. The programme concentrates on these five systems: the respiratory tract, the locomotor tract, the cardiovascular tract, the abdomen and the urinary tract. Signs and symptoms that relate to more than one system are typical for primary care and, thus, form part of the programme.

International orientation
The international orientation of the programme is reflected by important roles its participants play in international programmes for education in primary care research, the presence of PhD students from abroad and the close cooperation with leading groups in, and outside, Europe. As a logical consequence of this, cross border differences between primary care systems are investigated.

Content
The programme consists of eight research lines, of which five are organ system related. The eight research lines are on:

• respiratory tract infections (diagnosis and treatment);
• the musculoskeletal tract (osteoporosis, fracture prediction and prevention, sub-acute shoulder complaints);
• the cardiovascular tract (screening, prevalence, incidence of risk factors, risk prevention);
• the gastro-intestinal tract (dyspepsia, IBS, IBD, colorectal cancer)
• the lower urinary tract (LUTS);
• continuous monitoring of health to evaluate practice based innovation (Study on Medical Information and Lifestyles Eindhoven (SMILE), Registration Network of Family Practices (RNH));
• generic aspects of primary care (multi-morbidity and poly-pharmacy, self tests, blood investigation in patient with unexplained complaints, diagnostic value of gut feelings, morbidity patterns in families and genetics, oncology);
• innovation of primary health care (cardiovascular, diabetes, depression, COPD) and innovative methods of diagnostic and intervention research.