Salamanca has 35 primary health care units, with a stable research structure located in the Department of Primary Health Care, with a team in charge of training and research and a technical support unit. In the La Alamedilla health centre, with the teams for La Alamedilla and Garrido Sur neighbourhoods, we find the research group GIAPCyL, which is part of ISCIII's Primary Care Prevention and Health Promotion Network (redIAPP).

Since their constitution in 1990, these groups have been actively researching in the field of primary health care with the development of several regional projects. In 2003, when redIAPP was constituted through the Carlos III Health Institute (ISCIII) call for proposals (G03/170 network), it was included in the Castilla y León node. This was a milestone for research in Salamanca's primary health care. From then onwards it was possible to provide the La Alamedilla health centre with an infrastructure and a research trainee, and, therefore, start working on several multicentre national projects.

Later, in 2006 with the RETICS call for proposals, Salamanca was able to consolidate its position within the network, with budget for a research contract. It was also able to engage a clinical group to support the research group.

Thanks to this new situation, there has been a considerable increase in the number of national and regional research projects, together with the dissemination of the research outcomes in national and international journals. This has contributed to the appointment of more support staff, which now includes two nurses, a psychologist and one statistician.

The aim of this research area is the generation of knowledge that can be applied to primary health care, especially on efficacy, effectiveness and efficiency of innovative interventions in primary, secondary and tertiary prevention, in addition to its transfer to clinical practice and service organisation.

The scientific goals are:

- Design and develop research projects of the highest quality aimed at increasing prevention awareness, especially on those areas with a higher morbidity rate, such as mental health conditions, cardiovascular health and cancer.

- Develop innovative interventions that take into account the health care service as a whole. Prevention includes the following categories:

• Primary prevention, with health and lifestyle promotion.
• Secondary prevention, including early detection, screening and diagnosis of health conditions.
• Tertiary prevention, including the management and follow-up of conditions and the prevention of complications.

- Stimulate the translation of research outcomes towards the clinical practice and the organisation of services, facilitating the scientific publication of said outcomes and their dissemination, aimed at three main groups:

• The public,
• health professionals
• planners and managers of the health services.