The ORPRN Logo
Cover for the ORPRN 2023 Impact Report

Donate to ORPRN

Support community-engaged research, education, and health policy in Oregon.

Donate now using the button above to ensure that ORPRN’s projects continue to impact health and health equity in rural and low-resourced communities throughout the state.

Mission Statement

ORPRN's mission is to improve health and equity for all Oregonians through community engaged research, education, and policy.

Diversity Commitment

ORPRN is committed to building and sustaining a diverse, equitable, inclusive and anti-racist organization. We do so by evaluating how we develop and support our workforce, the partnerships we uphold and how we engage in community-partnered dialogue, research, coaching and education throughout Oregon.

Message from the Director

Announcing the ORPRN 2019-2023 Impact Report

Melinda Davis
Melinda Davis, PhD. Photo by Christine Torres

I write this post from the Portland airport, while waiting to board a plane for the World Organization of Family Doctor’s (WONCA) World meeting in Sydney, Australia. I couldn’t sleep last night because I was giddy with excitement.

As I am connecting in-person with collaborators across the globe, I’m pleased to announce the release of the 2019-2023 ORPRN Impact Report. These past four years have challenged primary care and public health programs. ORPRN and our teams have been positioned to turn these challenges into opportunities. As highlighted in the Impact Report, we’ve grown our team from 25 to over 60 employees working to advance our mission of “improving health and health equity for all Oregonians.” We built out new responsive lines of business, innovated on work to implement screening and referral for unmet social needs, trained health professionals across the state using the ECHO model, and implemented programs to support research trials across diverse populations.

Some of the highlights of what we achieved between 2019 and 2023 include reaching over 230 clinics in research or quality improvement work, working with 52 community partners and programs, and engaging directly or indirectly over 67,300 individuals in clinical trials or other research efforts. ORPRN continues to be collaborative with faculty across 5 departments at OHSU in addition to our community partners. And we are working at getting the word out about our work. Last year alone, ORPRN staff and collaborators published 27 manuscripts and gave almost 40 regional or national presentations.

Just as the report celebrates ORPRN’s accomplishments, my trip across the world will be a time to celebrate professional achievements supported by my time at ORPRN. As I advance in my profession, I have made friends and built a network that I could only dream of when I was starting out. I recall prepping for my first 15-minute oral presentation together with a colleague in 2008 at a North American Primary Care Research Group (NAPCRG) conference.  I was finishing my PhD and he was starting out, and now I’m staying with him in Sydney and we are both now faculty and program directors in our respective universities.

At WONCA, I’m part of an invited international panel on practice-based research networks (PBRNs) sharing about program innovations to respond to primary care and community health needs. Additionally, I’ll be reconnecting with Masa Nishimura, MD. Masa was a research fellow in the OHSU Department of Family Medicine from 2019-2022 through the Japan Association for Development of Community Medicine (JADECOM) program. The ORPRN team continues to play an important role in mentoring JADECOM fellows. Finally, I’m traveling north to Proserpine to sail in the Whitsundays with a faculty colleague and now friend. We first met in 2018 when we served on a review panel for the Canadian Institute of Health Research on strategies for patient-oriented research.

I hope you take a moment to review the Impact Report and enjoy celebrating these achievements. We have set a strong foundation for the future, and for our work in partnership with each of you as we move forward.