Research summary
Primary health-care providers play a vital role in detecting family violence and connecting patients to specialist care and support. But incorporating these supports into primary health-care practices has been slow. As Canada Research Chair in Health System Integration, Dr. Stephanie Montesanti is designing, delivering and evaluating models of care for providing services that address family violence in these settings.
Montesanti and her research team are evaluating innovative models for integrated responses to family violence in diverse primary health-care settings and analyzing the policies that have been implemented in countries that use a “health systems approach” to family violence. They are also assessing how prepared health-care settings are to implement responses to family violence. In addition, they are using local, real-time data about the prevalence of reported incidents of family violence and help-seeking behaviours to better coordinate care for affected families.