Primary care epidemiology: new uses of old tools.

The emergence of interest in community oriented primary care (COPC) has emphasized the need for applications of epidemiologic principles to the practice of primary health care. A recent report from the Institute of Medicine has demonstrated the feasibility of COPC in a variety of practice settings, and has recommended the development of simple and easily applied quantitative techniques to support this form of primary care. The purposes of primary care practice, research, and education would be well served by techniques that improve the physician's knowledge of the patient population. Epidemiology offers the fundamental principles and methods to support primary care, but these have been neither appropriately modified nor integrated into primary care practice. The potential benefits of and the requirements for an epidemiology for primary care are presented and discussed.