"Not a kidney or a lung:" research challenges in a network of safety net clinics

To gain a better understanding of the facilitators and barriers to creating a practice-based research network (PBRN) of safety net clinics, we conducted a qualitative study within our network of safety net health centers.

Utilizing snowball sampling, we conducted interviews with 19 of our founding stakeholders and analyzed these interviews to draw out common themes.

The results showed four barriers to research in our network: lack of research generated from clinician questions, lack of appropriate funding, lack of clinician time, and lack of infrastructure. We discuss these results and suggest that inadequate funding for practice-based research, particularly in the health care safety net, is a unifying theme of these four barriers.

Our results suggest that the national funding strategy for research relevant to underserved populations and all of primary care must undergo a fundamental shift. We discuss the features of possible models to meet this need.