Background: Linking gLOCAL and COPC

The JBI gLOCAL Solution Room is a week-long global series of locally hosted, interactive events designed to provide pragmatic solutions to challenges in getting evidence into practice, bringing together clinicians, academics and policymakers to discuss how global evidence informs local practice and how local experience shapes global thinking in evidence-based healthcare. JBI explicitly frames “gLOCALization” as the simultaneous global and local nature of evidence generation, synthesis, transfer and implementation, emphasizing that evidence must be adapted to specific contexts given differences in economics, policy, systems and culture.

Sidney and Emily Kark were pioneering South African family physicians who introduced COPC to South Africa. They championed an integrated model combining population health needs assessment, community engagement, and primary care delivery in underserved areas, influencing South Africa’s National Health Act and Ward-Based Primary Health Care Outreach Teams today. Their legacy underscores COPC’s gLOCAL essence: adapting global primary care principles—like those from the 1978 Alma-Ata Declaration—to local contexts such as informal settlements and resource.

In India, community-oriented primary care has evolved through national initiatives such as the National Rural Health Mission and Ayushman Bharat, which emphasise decentralised, community-driven primary care. Frontline workers like Accredited Social Health Activist embody this approach by linking households with health systems. India’s COPC model adapts global principles to diverse local contexts, including rural, tribal, and underserved urban populations.