Australian university general practices : potential to reach out to vulnerable young people

There will be some 1.9 billion youth aged 15-24 globally by 2030.1 Youth can be a positive force for economic growth when they are provided with the knowledge and opportunities to thrive. However, for young people and particular those that are marginalised, health care access has been identified as a contributory factor to their vulnerability.2 Barriers include lack of knowledge of health services, inconvenient opening hours, cost, waiting times, unfriendly environments and lack of doctor confidence in dealing with young people.3 Best practice guidelines and proposals of alternate youth-centric models of healthcare are proposed. One group of healthcare services that has yet to be described in the literature are university associated general practices located on and close to university campuses. This group of general practices may already be providing improved access to health care for many young people and be uniquely positioned to reach out to the more vulnerable amongst them. As an initial step to better understand Australian university general practices we conducted a pilot study of Brisbane's Queensland University of Technology (QUT) general practice. This descriptive work included a retrospective review of 12-months of age stratified encounter data (Ethics: 1500001132).