Exploring the boundaries of community medicine in Sri Lanka: a conceptual model for service delivery

The medical background enables CCPs to act as technical experts and medical administrators in public health services. Key functions of CCPs outlined in the job description (2) include public h e a l t h p r o g r a m m e m a n a g e m e n t , p o l i c y analysis/development, strategic planning, advocacy, raising awareness on health, surveillance monitoring, evaluation, research, quality assurance, training, capacity building and fund mobilization. CCPs who function as medical administrators too, implement above functions as per relevance to the intuitions, directorates or programmes. Although public health has a well-agreed definition (3), there seems to be many definitions for CM and conflicts about roles and professional identity of CCPs. It is a timely requirement to explore evidence to illustrate a model of service delivery for CCPs. A thorough literature search and a narrative review based on the content revealed the following four main themes related to CM: