Download the PDF file.  Then, read the entire article titled "On “A Practice of Social Medicine” by Sidney and Emily Kark." Dr. Jaime Gofin, a colleague and member of the Kark team, elaborates on their work and also offers further context and historical information.

Read the entire article titled "Community-Oriented Primary Care: A Path to Community Development." Dr. H Jack Geiger details COPC in Mississipi in the United States during the 1960s, another important era for understanding COPC today.

Read this article, titled "Community-Oriented Primary Care: Historical Perspective." It offers a good overall summary of COPC from a historical perspective and will give you a basic theoretical understanding of COPC.

Read this entire summary of an interview titled "Dr. Jaime Gofin on Community Oriented Primary Care (COPC)" to understand the principles of COPC in context.

Scroll down and read the section titled "COPC Defined" for a general understanding of the COPC process. This process will be referenced throughout the course.

Scroll down and under the heading titled "Activities and Modules" click on the link titled "Module 1 - Introduction to COPC". Read through the slides for a general understanding of the COPC process. Lecture notes are available for download.

Read the entire article titled "What Is Community? An Evidence-Based Definition for Participatory Public Health" for an evidence-based definition of community.

Download the PDF file.  Then, read this book chapter (reproduced in Social Medicine) titled "A Practice of Social Medicine." Sydney and Emily Kark are the original pioneers of the COPC approach.

Read the article titled "Community-Oriented Primary Care: The Missing Link." This article explores what it means to be a community-oriented practitioner. 

Read the article titled "Pioneering Community-Oriented Primary Care". This commentary reviews the work of Sydney and Emily Kark. It is derived from a memorial lecture given by Professor M. Susser for Sydney Kark.

"Community-Oriented Primary Care: An Examination of the US Experience" looks at 7 COPC case studies in the United States and examines the diversity of the principles and lessons learned.

Read the article titled “Commentary: In Search of Innovative Approaches to International Health" for further examples and a better understanding of Kark's original philosophy. This article written by the founders of COPC, reviews the community health program at Aga Khan University in Pakistan from a historical context.  

Read "Handout 4-3: An Overview of Community-Oriented Primary Care" for an overview and definition of COPC.

Scroll down and under the heading titled "Activities and Modules" click on the link titled "Module 2 - Defining the Community". Read through the slides in order to describe and understand the community. Lecture notes are available for download.

Read the two introductory paragraphs and the section titled "What is a community?".  It summarizes how to define a community. 

Read down from the section titled "What do we mean by understanding and describing the community?".  It summarizes how to characterize the community.

Read this article titled "Geographic Retrofitting: A Method of Community Definition in Community-Oriented Primary Care Practices." This article describes how geographic retrofitting in combination with geographic information system (GIS) technology can be used to help define the community and assist in interventions.

Read this article titled "Application of Epidemiology in Community Oriented Primary Care." This article, although one of the earliest articles used in this course, is one of the few available articles that specifically addresses which components of epidemiology should be utilized in COPC. 

In "Chapter 17: Analyzing Community Problems and Solutions" click on the link titled “Section 3. Defining and Analyzing the Problem”. Read the content under the heading "Main Section". Look at the examples illustrated under the “Examples” tab in order to understand how to identify, define, and analyze community health problems. Then, click on the link titled "Section 4. Analyzing the Root Causes of Problems: The "But Why?" Technique”. Again, read the content under the heading "Main Section" and look at the examples illustrated under the “Examples” tab in order to understand how to (i) identify, (ii) define, and (iii) analyze community health problems. The Community Tool Box is a valuable resource and will be referenced throughout this course.  

In "Chapter 3: Section 8. Identifying Community Assets and Resources" read the content under the heading "Main Section" to understand methods for the identification of community assets and resources.

Read the World Health Organization’s webpage titled "About social determinants of health". Click on the "Key concepts" links and read the content to further your understanding of the global social determinants of health.

Read the content of "Chapter 17. Section 5. Addressing Social Determinants of Health and Development" under the heading "Main Section" for a general overview. Being aware of social determinants of health is crucial when involving the community and analyzing health indicators/problems.

Read the content in "Chapter 3. Section 16. Geographic Information Systems: Tools for Community Mapping" under the heading of "Main Section" for an introduction to GIS and how it can be used in community mapping and diagnosis. View the PowerPoint slides, by clicking on the link, if further understanding is needed or desired. 

Explore this website titled "GIS and Public Health at CDC" to further understand the uses of GIS, as described in the previous resource.

Scroll through the section titled "2. Assessing Community Needs and Resources." This resource is an outline that provides links for assessing community needs and resources. Although you already read the section titled "Understanding and Describing the Community" as a required reading, feel free to click on any other section link to learn more about topics you are not confident with.

Explore the website titled the "Health Indicators Warehouse (HIW)" to examine the list of health indicators in various communities in the United States. Think about how these indicators might change in different parts of the world.

Scroll down and under the heading titled "Activities and Modules" click on the link titled "Module 3 - Identifying Health Problems". Read through the slides in order to learn how to identify health problems. Lecture notes are available for download.

Read the article titled "Improving the Use of Research Evidence in Guideline Development: 2. Priority Setting." This article describes a broad spectrum of criteria for setting priorities and suggests those that should be used.

Read the web page to learn about qualitative methods to assess the health condition.

Read the section titled "Step 3: Collect Data" to learn how to conduct a community assessment.

Read the article titled "The Jerusalem Experience: Three Decades of Service, Research, and Training in Community-Oriented Primary Care" in order to gain a better understanding of how the COPC process works (as in the Jerusalem example). Examine Figure 1 which clearly illustrates the COPC cycle.

 In "Chapter 19" read the content of "Section 1. Criteria for Choosing Promising Practices and Community Interventions" under the "Main Section" and "Checklist" tabs. These pages from The Community Tool Box provide a comprehensive overview of criteria as well as qualitative and quantitative methods you should consider when designing an intervention, . Furthermore, this resource provides information on locating other current interventions and quantitative and qualitative methods.

In "Chapter 19. Choosing and Adapting Community Interventions" read the content of the "Main Section" tab for both “Section 4. Adapting Community Interventions for Different Cultures and Communities” and “Section 5. Ethical Issues in Community Interventions.”  These sections will help you think about how culture and ethical issues can affect community interventions. These issues are critical elements to consider especially for an outsider working in a foreign community. However, they are also important factors to keep in mind when working within your own community.

In "Chapter 18. Deciding Where to Start" read the content under the heading “Main Section" of both “Section 1. Designing Community Interventions” and “Section 2. Participatory Approaches to Planning Community Interventions.” These webpages in the ‘Community Tool Box’ outline the methods to construct a community intervention as well as the participatory approaches to planning one.

Use "Chapter 5: Assessing Evidence and Information" as an additional resource to read more about the different types of research (qualitative and quantitative), the measures of risk, and the associated bias. Please note that the source is not written from a COPC perspective but can act as a supplement to develop a better understanding about evidence collection and analysis.

Read the entire article.  Ensure you examine Table 3 which outlines the stages of the COPC implementation process.

Read and study the article titled "Being Community-Responsive Physicians: Doing the Right Thing." It is a qualitative study that examines how family physicians respond to community needs in either community health centers or fee-for-service practices in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Consider what experiences and challenges you might face as a physician.

In "Chapter 18. Section 3. Identifying Targets and Agents of Change: Who Can Benefit and Who Can Help" read the content under the "Main Section" and "Examples" tabs in order to help identify potential agents of change in the community where you are working.

Read the article titled "Training and Application of Community-Oriented Primary Care (COPC) Through Family Medicine in Catalonia, Spain" for a sense of how to teach COPC to other residents and how to cooperate with an established national health system. This article details how and why COPC was successful in Catalonia, Spain.

Scroll down and under the heading titled "Activities and Modules" click on the link titled "Module 4 - Developing and Monitoring Interventions".  Read through the slides to learn how to evaluate an intervention.  Lecture notes are available for download.

Read the article titled "Use of Clinical Indicators to Evaluate COPC Projects." Understand some of the potential methods and problems associated with the evaluation of COPC projects based on clinical indicators.

Read the entire page.

Read from the beginning of the article until the heading "The Promise of Integration."

Read the article titled "Patients and Community Together", which details a COPC approach in an urban private practice in the United States, if you are either working in a urban community in the United States or are interested in encouraging community involvement in a private practice setting elsewhere.

"A Community-Oriented Primary Care Demonstration Project" details another example of COPC in an African-American community in the Southeastern United States. Read this if you are either working with similar communities or if the priority health needs, in your chosen community, are diabetes or cardiovascular disease.

Read the content under the heading "Outline" in the chapter titled "12. Evaluating the Initiative." This resource provides links to other chapter sections. Click on these links to gain an overall understanding of what is involved in the evaluation of an initiative. Use this resource as a reference as you read the other materials in this section and follow any links toward topics that you do not understand or would like to know more about.

Read this webpage titled "Topic 1: What is Organizing?" This resource is a part of Marshall Ganz’s Web module on ‘organizing’ given at Harvard University.

Scroll down the webpage titled "Topic 4: Why We Organize: Values, Motivation, and Narrative" until you reach the heading "Key Readings."  Open and read the first key reading titled "Organizing Notes chapter on motivation." 

Scroll down the webpage titled "Topic 5: How We Organize: Resources, Strategy, and Power" until you reach the heading "Key Readings." Open and read each of the three key readings: "Organizing Notes," "The Bible," and "Ganz's Harvard course readings on strategy organizing."

Please note: to obtain the text for "The Bible" reading, scroll down and select ‘1 Samuel’ in the ‘Entire Bible’ menu and keep the ‘King James Version’ as the Bible version choice. Click on ‘17’ to access the correct chapter. Each verse is its own paragraph. Read paragraphs 4 to 49.

Watch the two Lecture Videos under "Topic 1: What is Organizing?"

Under "Topic 4: Why We Organize: Values, Motivation, and Narrative" watch the first Lecture Video titled "Ganz's video vignette on motivation." Also find some of the suggested readings on your own to read.

Please note: RealPlayer is required for viewing these videos.

Watch the two Lecture Videos under "Topic 5: How We Organize: Resources, Strategy, and Power" and find some of the suggested readings on your own to read.

Please note: RealPlayer is required for viewing these videos.

Read the entire article except the section titled "COPC Defined".  This article reviews the evolution of COPC, evaluates some of the "pitfalls and paradoxes" and amendments to COPC, and notes potential future roles for COPC. Now that you have engaged with a local community, this article helps us understand the greater significance of COPC in the world.

Read the entire article to learn about COPC and the health care system.

Read the article titled "What We Mean by Social Determinants of Health." This paper was the inaugural speech presented at the Eighth European Conference of the International Union of Health Promotion and Education. It reviews the bigger picture, or i.e. more systematic components and power relations that affect the social determinants of health as well as health inequities.

Read the article titled "Community-Oriented Primary Care in Action: A Dallas Story." This paper details one of the largest urban COPC models in the United States. The authors conclude that the COPC model can be implemented in other urban areas.

Click on the PDF icon to download the article titled "Towards Unity for Health Utilising Community-Oriented Primary Care in Education and Practice". Read the entire article. This paper looks at how COPC can be used by a global health organization that is interested in strengthening health systems.

Read the article titled "A Systematic Review of the Evidence on Integration of Targeted Health Intervention into Health Systems." This article explores the integration of health interventions into larger health systems and gives an evidence-based analysis of integration in different countries. Consider what challenges a COPC approach might face from greater health systems and competing health interventions.

Read the following sections: "2.2 Overview of the health system" and "2.3 Historical background." Also read in section "5.3 Primary and ambulatory care" the part titled "Village (or Community) Health Workers."

Read section "6.3.1 Health Service Delivery."

Read the "Executive Summary" or the entire document.

Read section "5.1 Public Health."

Read the article by Paul Farmer titled "An Anthropology of Structural Violence." The "Comments" section found at the end of the article, is optional. This paper focuses on Farmer's work in Haiti and is one of the key analyses of structural violence in a contemporary global health setting, It is important to understand the greater structural implications which affect health and health care.

Scroll down the webpage and read the section titled "Call for Global Health-Systems Impact Assessments." This article details a potential method for evaluating the impact of health interventions on health systems.

Read the entire article titled "The Community-Oriented Primary Care Experience in the United Kingdom." This article looks at the primary care approach in the UK as part of the National Health Service system. 

Read the article titled "Roots, Shoots, but Too Little Fruit: Assessing the Contribution of COPC in South Africa". The COPC movement in South Africa is unique due to its interruption by apartheid. Consider the implications of greater politics on the success of health interventions.

Scroll down and under the heading titled "Activities and Modules" click on the link titled "Module 2 - Defining the Community". Read through the slides in order to describe and understand the community. Lecture notes are available for download.

Read this article titled "Geographic Retrofitting: A Method of Community Definition in Community-Oriented Primary Care Practices." This article describes how geographic retrofitting in combination with geographic information system (GIS) technology can be used to help define the community and assist in interventions.

Scroll down and under the heading titled "Activities and Modules" click on the link titled "Module 2 - Defining the Community". Read through the slides in order to describe and understand the community. Lecture notes are available for download.

Click http://www.graham-center.org/rgc/maps-data-tools/tools/copc.html link to open resource.