Objectives: Primary care and public health comprise the bedrock of health systems, but their divergence has produced two groups of practitioners either focused on individual health or population health. We explored how primary care and public health were integrated in medical students’ training in Zamboanga Peninsula, Philippines.Methods: Our qualitative study reviewed community health plans in two municipalities and thematically analyzed the perspectives of medical students, faculty, alumni, and community stakeholders through focus group discussions and in-depth interviews.Results: Integration began by operationalizing a curriculum requiring medical students to serve rural communities during most of their training—a departure from the conventional, hospital-based medical education in the Philippines. The medical students’ community immersion provided opportunities for integrating primary care and public health activities that influenced their personal orientations and the health situation in communities. Integration continued after training as alumni found themselves serving as primary care and public health practitioners in the region.Conclusion: Social accountability and community-engaged medical education provided the foundation for medical students to integrate primary care and public health in practice to respond to local needs.

Due to numerous waves of COVID-19 surge and a more focused government initiative to jump-start the COVID-19 vaccination in 2021, routine immunization was neglected in Zamboanga Peninsula, Philippines, ending the year with a fully-immunized coverage of only 59%. To address this, an intensified catch-up immunization campaign was conducted in April-June 2022 among children 0-23 months of age who missed their routine immunizations. A program case study is utilized to describe the catch-up immunization campaign conducted.  The target for the catch-up immunization campaign was to vaccinate at least 80% of infants ages 0-23 months who missed any of their routine immunizations schedule. Online microplanning workshops and consultative meetings were conducted in preparation for the campaign. A record review was conducted from data from municipal and provincial health offices and then consolidated at the regional level.  The coverage for all antigens at the regional level (all cities, and municipalities combined), was 49-60%, except for inactivated polio vaccine 2 (32%).   In other words, approximately half of those children under 23 months who had missed doses got vaccinated during the catch-up vaccination activities. This was a relatively fair turnout of the campaign considering that the local government units are still transitioning to non-COVID health services. To address the immunization gap, the catch-up immunization campaign will continue to be conducted wherein local government unit health workers have already allotted one day every month to conduct house-to-house vaccination activity to track and vaccinate missed children.