September 30, 2022 – As director of the Robert Graham Center – part of the research division of the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) – Dr. Yalda Jabbarpour fields a lot of questions from primary care doctors. For instance, during the rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine, she was hearing a lot of the same questions: “Why aren’t primary care doctors getting more of the vaccine? We thought primary care offices were the people who traditionally vaccinated the public rather than retail clinics or the hospitals.”
“We said, ‘Yes, anecdotally you feel that. But let’s look at the research.’”
So Dr. Jabbarpour and her team looked at the research on past vaccinations and found that their hypothesis was actually true – the majority of the vaccines that were given in the United States have been given in the primary care office.
“That data was instrumental in helping the AAFP and family physicians advocate for getting COVID-19 vaccines into the hands of primary care physicians,” said Dr. Jabbarpour, who along with her role with the Robert Graham Center, is a family physician and works clinically with MedStar Health, a large health system in Washington D.C.
In an interview with Repertoire, Dr. Jabbarpour discussed some of the Center’s recent findings, reasons behind the workforce shortages and physician burnout, as well as what can be done to better emphasize primary care in the United States.