The Primary Care for the Underserved Conference as a building block to social capital: impact on practice, research, and education.

A previous article traced the evolution of the Primary Care for the Underserved Conference into a new professional culture (Beauchesne & Patsdaughter, 2005). This article focuses on the relevance of the conference series as a building block of social capital. The authors critically examine the impact of the conference on health care practice, research, and education. The authors analyze two sources of data (conference evaluation and email surveys) using a descriptive, qualitative approach. Findings support the conference as a significant source of social capital for health professionals. The article includes an exemplar describing the impact of this conference on individual practitioners.