RESEARCH CALLS
Past research call: Race and Racism in Primary Care
The text below has been preserved for posterity, but the research call is now closed. Please do not submit manuscripts for consideration under this call.
The Black Lives Matter campaign has highlighted issues of race and racism which are present in all parts of our communities and organisations.
BJGP Open is seeking submissions to document these issues within primary care. This will include, but is not limited to, evidence around structural racism, cultural racism, individual level discrimination, health inequality, barriers to minority communities, racial determinants of health, educational attainment among minority groups, and racial profiling. Alongside our usual Research, and Practice & Policy formats, for this call only, we will additionally publish short (maximum 350 word) Viewpoints to document experiences of racism in primary care as a patient, practitioner, trainee, or researcher. To submit a Viewpoint, email a completed form to BJGP Open (using the subject line 'Viewpoint submission').
Guidance on submitting articles
Submissions will be accepted until the 20th September through our online portal; please state in your cover letter that you are targeting this particular call. Alternatively, you can email your pre-submission queries to BJGP Open (using the subject line 'Pre-submission Query: RRPC'). This particular issue is being led by the Editor with support from our Guest Editor, Dr Peter Adams from Barbados.
Guest Editors are experts in their respective fields who provide guidance and oversight on specific BJGP Open research calls and will advise on scope and content. They will engage with authors, commission papers, and offer expert opinion on submissions. However, all final editorial decisions are made by the Editor, Dr Hajira Dambha-Miller.
Introducing our guest editor
Dr Adams is a member of the BJGP’s International Advisory Board and Dean of the Faculty of Medical Sciences at the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus. He completed secondary school at Queens College in his native Guyana, received a BSc in Biochemistry from Imperial College of Science and Technology, University of London, and a MBBS and DM Family Medicine from the University of the West Indies (Jamaica and Barbados campuses). He is a GP who after completing his internship in Trinidad has been practising medicine for over 30 years in Barbados. He is a former Editor of the Barbados Association of Medical Practitioners Bulletin.
Dr Adams has a strong interest in health disparities resulting from social, economic, environmental, educational and health care access differences. The current debate highlights the impact of race and racism on these factors and on physical and mental health. Dr Adams offers a personal perspective and professional expertise on the subject.
Past research call: international primary care and COVID-19
The text below has been preserved for posterity, but the research call is now closed. Please do not submit manuscripts for consideration under this call.
BJGP Open is seeking submissions that document how the COVID-19 pandemic is influencing the ability of international health systems to deliver high quality primary care. We welcome primary research and comparative analyses that elucidate differences in international responses linked to primary data on how access, continuity, comprehensiveness, coordination, and person-focused care are changing, and the subsequent impact on health and social outcomes. Documenting the outcomes of the myriad natural experiments playing out around the globe will generate important new evidence on the contribution of different primary care functions to the health of societies. We encourage submissions that present regional analyses rather than the experiences of individual countries.
Other important topics include socioeconomic inequalities in access to high quality care; how the pandemic has exacerbated existing weaknesses in domestic primary care systems; shifts in workforce roles; and the changing relationship between primary care and other elements of the health system e.g. secondary care and public health. As WONCA president Donald Li has stressed, primary care is always the ‘first in and last out’ with global outbreaks, and it is vital that we document and understand the short-term and lasting changes that COVID-19 will make to our health services around the world.
Guest Editors are experts in their respective fields who provide guidance and oversight on specific BJGP Open research calls and will advise on scope and content. They will engage with authors, commission papers and offer expert opinion on submissions. However, all final editorial decisions are made by the Editor-in-Chief.
GUIDANCE ON SUBMITTING COVID-19 ARTICLES
We will consider expedited publication of manuscripts related to the COVID-19 pandemic. This may include but is not limited to rapid reviews, preliminary research, protocols, and research briefs. We will also publish opinions, commentaries, case-reports, policy documents, and clinical perspectives.
We have simplified our Article Processing Charges for any COVID-19 submissions. Manuscripts below 1200 words with one table or figure, regardless of article type, will be processed at our lower fee (£250 +VAT). Manuscripts over 1200 words, with up to six tables or figures, will be subject to our full APC charge (£1000 +VAT). Information on waivers can be found here.
All submission will undergo open external peer review. We try to give first decisions on COVID-19 articles within a few weeks, although this may vary depending on the number of submissions and the workload of our peer reviewers. If the decision is favourable, we have set up new procedures to publish these articles as soon as possible.
ABOUT OUR GUEST EDITOR
Luke trained in medicine and international health at Bristol. He completed his MPH in global health at Harvard and is now an academic GP at the University of Oxford. He worked on the vision and background documents for the Astana Declaration on Primary Health Care and has extensive experience at the World Health Organization. He has published widely in the field of global health and worked closely with senior health system leaders across low-, middle-, and high-income countries. Prior to this, he worked as the research and innovation lead at the WHO Global Coordination Mechanism on Noncommunicable Diseases.