IDIAPJGol and Vall d'Hebron collaborate in pediatric research in primary care

The joint work has received a runner-up prize for the best Oral Communication from the Catalan Pediatric Society.

The COVID-19 pandemic has shown the need to obtain and analyze data from different areas of specialization in a fast way. To achieve this, the Vall d'Hebron Research Institute (VHIR) and the University Institute for Research in Primary Care - IDIAP Jordi Gol have begun to work together on a multidisciplinary research strategy in pediatrics that has allowed to carry out collaborative research of high level, with the final result of several publications and a runner-up prize for the best Oral Communication of the Catalan Pediatric Society.

The collaboration between both entities started with projects in pediatric COVID-19 (COPEDICAT), when the opportunity to collaborate in research from the VHIR research group with primary care was detected to study various aspects of COVID-19 in pediatrics. The COPEDICAT group, currently made up of more than 150 pediatricians, integrates professionals from multiple fields and different levels of care (pediatricians, nurses, physicists, microbiologists, epidemiologists) to do quality research.

"With the collaboration agreement that we have signed, we add the VHIR's research experience with the knowledge and wide distribution of the primary care territory", says Dr. Pere Soler, head of the research group on Infection in Immunosuppressed Pediatric Patients of the VHIR. Progressively, primary care pediatric teams and hospitals throughout Catalonia (rural and urban), public and private, are being incorporated.

"Primary pediatricians have direct contact with the general child population, in a transversal and continuous way, and this allows us to start joint projects", reflects Dr. Cinta Valldeperez, pediatrician of the Territorial Pediatric Primary Care Team (EAP) of Garraf. For her part, Dr. Mónica Vilà, pediatrician at the EAP Horta, adds that "the ultimate goal is to improve the care of our pediatric population thanks to this multidisciplinary work".

To promote research, IDIAP Jordi Gol has recently created the emerging research group on Infectious Diseases and Vaccination in Pediatrics. Together with the VHIR, projects have been launched in different areas, such as COVID-19, other respiratory viruses, meningococcal infection or rapid diagnostic tests in primary care.

The collaboration has already received its first recognition, obtaining a runner-up prize for the best Oral Communication from the Catalan Society of Pediatrics with the work "Can high-level research be carried out in primary care pediatrics?", presented in June of this year.