Partnerships between primary healthcare and population health: preventing chronic disease in Australia.

In Australia, partnership working between public health and primary healthcare for the prevention and management of chronic disease has been developing incrementally since the 2003 consensus statement developed by the Joint Advisory Group of the General Practice Partnership Advisory Council and the National Public Health Partnership Group. Australia's first national primary healthcare strategy (2010) provides a new opportunity to further develop this partnership, including multidisciplinary team-working in general practice for chronic disease prevention, and a new primary care organisation to oversee population health planning and health promotion. The needs of vulnerable and disadvantaged groups will be a central focus of the new planning structures. However, major barriers continue to frustrate collaborative population based planning and service development. Conclusion The jury is still out on how effective the partnership between state funded public health service and the new nationally funded primary care organisations will be. There is significant overlap in their functions, but few formal mechanisms for collaboration have been as yet established.