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Objective: To contrast how Brazil's and Canada's different jurisdictional and judicial realities have led to different types of telemedicine and how further scale and improvement can be achieved., Composition of the Committee: A subgroup of the Besrour Centre of the College of Family Physicians of Canada and Canadian telemedicine experts developed connections with colleagues in Porto Alegre, Brazil, and collaborated to undertake a between-country comparison of their respective telemedicine programs., Methods: Following a literature review, the authors collectively reflected on their experiences in an attempt to explore the past and current state of telemedicine in Canada and Brazil., Report: Both Brazil and Canada share expansive geographies, creating substantial barriers to health for rural patients. Telemedicine is an important part of a universal health system. Both countries have achieved telemedicine programs that have scaled up across large regions and are showing important effects on health care costs and outcomes. However, each system is unique in design and implementation and faces unique challenges for further scale and improvement. Addressing regional differences, the normalization of telemedicine, and potential alignment of telemedicine and artificial intelligence technologies for health care are seen as promising approaches to scaling up and improving telemedicine in both countries., (Copyright© the College of Family Physicians of Canada.)

Objective: To compare the national health systems of Canada and Brazil and how both countries have addressed similar challenges in their primary care sectors., Composition of the Committee: A subgroup of the Besrour Centre of the College of Family Physicians of Canada developed connections with colleagues in Brazil and collaborated to undertake a between-country comparison, comparing and contrasting various elements of both countries' efforts to strengthen primary care over the past few decades., Methods: Following a literature review, the authors collectively reflected on their experiences in an attempt to explore the past and current state of family medicine in Canada and Brazil., Report: The Brazilian and Canadian primary care systems are faced with similar challenges, including geography, demographic changes, population health inequities, and gaps in universal access to comprehensive primary care services. Although the approaches to addressing these challenges are different in both settings, they highlight the central importance of family physicians in both systems. Both countries continue to face considerable challenges in the context of mental health services in primary care. It remains important for Canada to draw lessons from the primary care systems and reforms of other countries, such as Brazil., (Copyright© the College of Family Physicians of Canada.)

Objective: To compare primary care in Canada and Brazil and how both countries have embraced the Starfield principles in the design of their health care systems., Composition of the Committee: A subgroup of the Besrour Centre of the College of Family Physicians of Canada developed connections with colleagues in Brazil and collaborated to undertake a between-country comparison, comparing and contrasting various elements of both countries' efforts to strengthen primary care over the past few decades., Methods: Following a literature review, the authors collectively reflected on their experiences in an attempt to explore the past and current state of family medicine in Canada and Brazil., Report: The Brazilian and Canadian primary care systems have both adopted and advanced the Starfield principles in various ways, with both countries showing an increasing trend toward adopting interprofessional team-based care. Access to primary care remains a challenge in rural areas in both countries, and longitudinal relationships between providers and patients appear to be more common in Canada. With the advent of technology, increasing patient engagement and expectations, the decline of paternalistic medicine, and the sheer mass of readily available information (and misinformation), to be successful, primary care systems must also be constructed to engender trust at both the local and the system levels. Both countries face challenges to maintaining trust in the context of the increasing prevalence of team-based care, and a lack of trust at the system level can be seen in patients' perceptions about the difficulty of finding a family doctor and in high rates of emergency department and urgent care centre use in both countries. Primary care reform must be implemented with the public's trust in mind., Conclusion: Trust is a crucial ingredient to the success of primary care and must be protected at both local and system levels. If designed with trust in mind, primary care in Canada and Brazil has the potential to meet the challenges set out by the Starfield principles., (Copyright© the College of Family Physicians of Canada.)

The aim was to analyse and improve the Primary Health Care (PHC) response to domestic violence against women (DVAW) by developing, implementing and evaluating an intervention. A pilot study evaluating the before and after of intervention implementation, using mixed methods and carried out in three phases - formative, intervention and evaluation - between August 2017 and March 2019 in two Basic Health Units (UBS) in the city of São Paulo. In this paper, we present the details and evaluation of the intervention, carried out six to twelve months after its implementation. The intervention was developed based on the findings of the formative phase and in line with the health policy that establishes the Violence Prevention Nucleus (NPV) and consisted of stablishing a care pathway; general training for all workers and specific training for the NPV; drawing up educational material and monthly case discussions over 6 months. The evaluation showed acceptability among the workers, increased identification and repertoire for caring for cases of DVAW, strengthening internal referral and the intersectoral network. We identified obstacles to the full implementation and sustainability of the intervention.

This paper describe a successful experience of promotion, prevention and support for breastfeeding developed by professionals from a basic health unit. This is a Breastfeeding Outpatient Clinic, implemented in a health center in Belo Horizonte, in August 2019. The Outpatient Clinic was established based on the perception of the unit's team that many mothers had difficulty breastfeeding, however, due to the work overload of this team, this assistance did not occur in a timely manner, resulting in early weaning. Initially, a meeting was held to sensitize the team on the breastfeeding indicators of the unit. Based on this knowledge, the implementation of a breastfeeding Outpatient clinic was proposed, aimed not only at dyad with difficulties in managing breastfeeding, but at all postpartum women in the area covered by that health center. A flow was created, through which it was established that all postpartum women who brought their children to carry out the heel prick test at the unit would be referred to the Breastfeeding Outpatient Clinic to perform this service. With the improvement of care, the users of the health center started to breastfeed for longer, which reflected in the improvement of the unit's indicators.

Objectives: To report the challenges for training and practice for the Brazilian primary dental care in a universal health system., Methods: Health, education and protection rights against poverty are guaranteed by the 1988 Brazilian Constitution and public health in Brazil is provided by the Unified Health System (SUS), one of the largest public health systems in the world. According to SUS, every Brazilian citizen has the right to free primary oral health care as secondary and tertiary care, offering a unique opportunity to integrate oral care within general health care., Results: The Brazilian undergraduate Dental curriculum was updated in 2021 aiming to graduate general practitioners with a major in comprehensive health care in primary health care, integrated with public and general health. This curriculum update requires at least 20% of the academic hours to be exercised outside the university walls (extramural or community work), preferably within the SUS., Conclusions: Considering the World Health Organization (WHO) agenda, Brazil needs to advance the innovative oral health workforce, the integration of oral health into primary care, the population access to essential dental medicines and optimal fluorides for caries control., Clinical Significance: It is necessary political action and the engagement of multiple stakeholders, mainly from the health and education sectors, to improve primary health care., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Aim: The Health Gym Program is the main health promotion strategy in the Brazilian public health system. This paper aims to measure the impact of the Health Gym Program on hospital admission expenses for stroke in the state of Pernambuco, Brazil. Subject and methods: This public health impact evaluation used a panel of socioeconomic, demographic, and epidemiological data from 2007 to 2019 for all 185 municipalities in the state of Pernambuco. The empirical strategy used pre-tests, ordinary least-squares econometric modeling, and quantile regression as a robustness test. Results: The municipalities that implemented the Health Gym Program spent an average of 21.04% less on hospitalizations for stroke than the municipalities that did not, and this result was statistically significant at the 1% level. Further, the density of program coverage within the municipality also impacts the reduction of expenses. This saving is directly proportional to the number of hubs of the program in the municipalities. An increase of one program hub for every 10,000 inhabitants results in a 4.57% reduction in expenditure on stroke hospitalizations in the municipalities. Conclusion: The presence of the Health Gym Program led to a reduction in expenses related to hospital admissions for stroke, which may indicate that this program effectively expands the scope of health promotion actions in primary healthcare. The evidence generated from this study can be used to implement evidence-based policies aimed at preventing and controlling chronic diseases in Brazil. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Management & Health / Revista Gestão & Saúde is the property of Revista Gestao e Saude and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper describes the structure and results of Primary Health Care (PHC) in Brazil between 2008 and 2019. The medians of the following variables were calculated: PHC spending per inhabitant covered, PHC coverage, and rates of mortality and hospitalizations due to primary care sensitive conditions (PCSC), in 5,565 Brazilian municipalities stratified according to population size and quintile of the Brazilian Deprivation Index (IBP), and the median trend in the period was analyzed. There was a 12% increase in median PHC spending. PHC coverage expanded, with 3,168 municipalities presenting 100% coverage in 2019, compared to 2,632 in 2008. The median rates of PCSC mortality and hospitalizations increased 0.2% and decreased 44.9%, respectively. PHC spending was lower in municipalities with greater socioeconomic deprivation. The bigger the population and the better the socioeconomic conditions were in the municipalities, the lower the PHC coverage. The greater the socioeconomic deprivation was in the municipalities, the higher the median PCSC mortality rates. This study showed that the evolution of PHC was heterogeneous and is associated both with the population size and with the socioeconomic conditions of the municipalities.

Copyright of Brazilian Journal of Occupational Therapy / Cadernos Brasileiros de Terapia Ocupacional is the property of Cadernos de Terapia Ocupacional da UFSCar and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Interprofessional research has made substantive progress in Brazil over the past decade, in line with globalization and the worldwide expansion of university international relationships. This sustained growth of interprofessional research in many other countries around the world has been increasingly reported in the literature. Interprofessional international research involves interactions and exchanges between researchers from different countries with different professional and disciplinary backgrounds who collaborate to undertake scholarly work. The benefits of interprofessional international research are many and varied. In this paper, we explore the opportunities and challenges related to interprofessional international research collaboration while reflecting on our personal experiences of a study focused on interprofessional collaboration in primary care which spanned two countries – Brazil and UK. A key element in our international research has been regular discussion, negotiation, and agreement. Collectively, these elements have helped to ensure that our international empirical work can be sustained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista do Serviço Público (Civil Service Review) is the property of Revista do Servico Publico and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Community health workers (CHWs) are framed as the link between communities and the formal health system. CHWs must establish trusting relationships with the community and with the broader health service. How to find the optimal balance between the various strands of work for CHWs, and how to formalise this, has been the focus of different studies. We performed an extensive documentary analysis of federal legislation in Brazil to understand the institutionalisation of the CHW workforce in Brazil over the last 3 decades. The paper offers three contributions to the literature: the development and application of an analytical framework to consider the institutionalisation process of CHWs; a historical analysis of the professional institutionalisation of CHW in Brazil; and the identification of the paradoxes that such institutionalisation faces: firstly, institutionalisation focused on improving CHW remuneration created difficulties in hiring and paying these professionals; when CHW are incorporated within state bureaucracy they start to lose their autonomy as community agents; and that the effectiveness of CHW programmes depends on the improvement of clinical services in the most deprived areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Although the use of biomarkers to assess health outcomes has recently gained momentum, literature is still scarce for low- to middle-income countries. This paper explores the relationship between primary care coverage and individual health in Brazil using a dataset of blood-based biomarkers collected by the Brazilian National Health Survey. Both survey data and laboratory results were crossed with coverage data from the Family Health Strategy (ESF) program, the most important primary care program in Brazil; the coverage measures aim to capture both direct (household) and indirect (spill-over) effects., Methods: The empirical strategy used a probit model to estimate the relationship between ESF program coverage and the likelihood of abnormal biomarker levels while controlling for a rich set of individual and household characteristics based on data from the national survey., Results: Household ESF coverage was associated with a lower likelihood of abnormal results for biomarkers related to anemia (marginal effect between - 2.16 and - 2.18 percentage points), kidney failure (between - 1.01 and - 1.19 p.p.), and arterial hypertension (between - 1.48 and - 1.64 p.p). The likelihood of abnormal levels of white blood cells and thrombocytes was negatively related to primary care coverage (marginal effect between - 1.8 and - 2 p.p.). The spillover effects were relevant for kidney failure and arterial hypertension, depending on the regional level. Although not sensitive to household coverage, diabetes mellitus was negatively associated with the state supply of primary care, and abnormal cholesterol levels did not present any relationship with ESF program coverage., Conclusions: The presence of spillover effects of ESF program coverage regarding these conditions reveals that the strengthening of primary care by increasing the household registration and the regional density of ESF teams is an efficient strategy to address important comorbidities., (© 2021. The Author(s).)

The paper presents the relationship between the allocation of financial resources and the type of local basic health infrastructure in an initial sample of 5,570 Brazilian municipalities. This is an explanatory research using multiple correspondence analysis and quantile regression between expenditure/control variables and the type of structure of PHC Units. The correspondence between the type and the representative variables of expenditure shows that inferior typologies are related to lower per capita expenditure in these variables, and vice versa. Quantile regression showed a positive relationship with the type of infrastructure in the two cycles evaluated. There is evidence that expenditure variables are positively related to infrastructure, which allows us to understand that allocating more resources leads to better infrastructure. Results point to the need to improve the governance of financial resources for health, as municipalities with lower socioeconomic indicators have an infrastructure in the lower categories. We can conclude that there are multiple actors, and the various criteria for allocating and decentralizing resources bring about difficulties of coordination and integration between the entities, restricting the appropriate prioritization in the distribution of resources.

This paper presents partial results of a research-intervention, through training of PHC work teams. Initial consultation was made in a group by HC professionals, and the osteopath then performed the consultation. The socialization and training of practical knowledge and techniques of the osteopathic approach was done between consultations. Multiprofessional teams from three health centers from Florianópolis, southern Brazil, participated in the training, and the process was audio and videorecorded, along with a final interview. Data was analyzed using the Grounded Theory. Apprehending the osteopathic knowledge was a triggering tool for reflective processes about care. Faced with the efficiency and resolution of this approach in practice, participants showed a willingness to transform their acts of care of patients and also their self-care. The professionals argue that the common understanding about self-regulating mechanisms and the inclusion of the tissue mobility in their anamnesis, including the stimulation of endogenous mechanisms, contributed to less protocol-based care, more appropriate care for each case, better multidisciplinary team work, the rational use of additional tests, medication, and surgical procedures.

This paper aimed to characterize actions directed to children's mental health (CMH) in Primary Health Care (PHC), based on an integrative review of Brazilian literature (2006-2017). The searches were carried out from LILACS, SciELO and VHL Network databases. After applying the inclusion and exclusion criteria, 13 articles were identified for analysis, which were presented in three thematic axes: 1) Characterization of the demands on CMH for PHC; 2) Actions and interventions on CMH carried out in PHC; and 3) Difficulties and propositions for the implementation of actions on CMH in PHC. The literature points, as the main actions, the identification of CMH problems and their referral to care by specialties. Some studies described specific actions of professionals such as physicians, pediatricians, and psychologists. Interventions of a local character or in partnerships with universities were also identified. The analysis of this material indicated that PHC has been considered as an important field of action in CMH, but that nevertheless requires greater investments, especially in professional training and work organization.

Since 2017, the Brazilian health system is facing a wave of counter-reforms in policies that have expanded coverage and access and intended to change the care model. Primary Health Care (PHC) has been substantially modified by synergistic and complementary federal official acts. The creation of federal autonomous social service for the provision of doctors; public consultation to institute basket of consumption in healthcare; the flexibility of the weekly workload of doctors and nurses, who may integrate more than one team; the non-setting of a minimum number of community health workers per team form the context in which the Previne Brasil Program was launched to be in force by 2020. The government's argument is to increase: flexibility and local autonomy to organize services, greater efficiency and valorization. of performance. Criticism from sanitarians, some state councils of municipal authorities and the National Health Council points to the privatizing, marketing, selective and focused character of the proposal that is moving towards universal health coverage. This paper analyzes the Previne Brazil Program which, among other things, alters funding and suggests increasing resources for PHC in a context of freezing social spending. Contradictions and alternatives are identified to minimize potential damage to existing policies.

The paper addresses the impacts of armed violence, based on Primary Health Care, in a neighborhood in the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. This is a qualitative exploratory study developed in two services aiming to identify the main types of violence, their impacts and the strategies used to cope with the phenomenon. The production of information included data collection in the service records, conducting semi-structured interviews, focus groups and feedback seminar. Armed violence, among all expressions of violence, was identified as one of the major concerns of healthcare professionals and users of services, due to its intense occurrence and the severity of its consequences on health. Its impact on strategies to cope with the violence and the difficulty in making the phenomenon visible are highlighted. It is considered that this type of violence, prevalent in the black territories of the city, is legitimized by structural racism, being the public security policy - based on the ideal of war on drugs and on the military confrontation with armed groups that operate in the retail trade of illicit drugs - expressions of state racism and necropolitics.

This paper aims to describe the indicators related to planning and support in the work process reported by the Family Health Teams, from the 3rd cycle of the National Program for Improving Access and Quality of Primary Care (PMAQ-AB) in the Brazilian Northeast. This cross-sectional study employed secondary data from the external evaluation of the 3rd cycle of the PMAQ-AB. Sixteen indicators were used to ascertain the teams' work process actions, and 14,489 family health teams that adhered to the program were evaluated. Among the indicators assessed, we found that the teams held a meeting and planned actions and self-evaluated, monitored, and analyzed health indicators to reorganize the work process, highlighting the determining and conditioning factors. Health surveillance and the Extended Family Health Center (NASF) stand out in the indicators of institutional support and multidisciplinary support for solving complex cases. We identified improvements in the work process of the teams in the Northeast region, but the reality of fragmented and vertical work still requires a change to promote an outlook of shared teamwork, directly influencing the work process.

Background: The shortage and high turnover of physicians is a recurrent problem in health care systems; this is especially harmful to the expansion and full operation of primary health care (PHC). The aim of this paper is to analyze incidence and associated factors with physician turnover in primary health care services in the East Zone of São Paulo City.Methods: This is a retrospective cohort study of 1378 physicians over a 15 years' time period based on physicians' administrative records from two distinct secondary databases. Physicians' individual characteristics were analyzed including graduation and specialization. Survival analysis techniques such Kaplan-Meier and Cox Regression were used to analyze the termination of contract.Results: One thousand three hundred seventy-eight physicians were included in the study of which 130 [9.4%(CI95 8.0-11.1%)] remained in the PHC services. The mean and median time until the occurrence of the physician leaving the service was 2.14 years (CI95% 1.98-2.29 years) and 1.17 years [(CI95% 1.05-1.28 years)]. The probability of contract interruption was 45% in the first year and 68% in the second year. Independent factors associated with TEC were identified: workload of 40 h/week HR = 1.71 [(CI95% 1.4-2.09), p < 0.001]; initial salary ≤1052 BGI HR = 1.87 [(CI95 1.64-2.15), p < 0.001]; time since graduation ≤2 years HR =1.36 [(CI95 1.18-1.56), p < 0.001]; and the conclusion of residency in up to 3 years after leaving the service HR = 1.69 [(CI95 1.40-2.04), p < 0.001].Conclusions: The time of employment of the physician in PHC was relatively short, with a high probability of TEC in the first year. Modifiable factors such as working hours, starting salary, time since graduation from medical school and need to enter in a residency program were associated with TEC. In pointing out that modifiable factors are responsible for long term employment or the end of contract of physicians in PHC services of the Unified Health System in the periphery of a metropolitan area, the study provides support for the planning, implementation and management of policies and strategies aimed at attracting and retaining physicians in suburban, priority or underserved regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to evaluate the performance of PHC from the perspective of users and its association with sociodemographic characteristics, self-reported health conditions, and behavioral risk factors for Chronic Noncommunicable Diseases. This is a population-based cross-sectional study with data from the 2015 VIGITEL Telephone Survey. The Primary Care Assessment Tool short version was adopted. The study population covers adults over 18 years of age who used PHC services in Belo Horizonte in the last 12 months (n = 872). The multiple logistic regression model was performed to estimate the odds ratio. We observed that adults without a health insurance plan are 3.21 (95% CI 2.08-4.96) more likely than those with a health insurance plan to evaluate PHC with a high score (≥ 6.6), and adults with low schooling (95% CI 1.48-5.32), people with diabetes (95% CI 1.05-3.24), obese (95% CI 1.20-3.24), and older adults (95% CI 1.00-1.41) were 2.81, 1.84, 1.97, and 1.19 more likely to report a high score for PHC quality than the others, respectively. The use of the PCATool short version in a telephone survey showed a new possibility for PHC performance assessment and can become useful in managing health services.

Introduction: New contexts of practice demand that professionals engage in critical reflection to handle new situations and to create new knowledge that is responsive to professional practices situated in unique historical and social contexts. Community of Practice offers a framework for professions to reflect together on practice dilemmas and to generate practical solutions., Methods: This paper presents a participatory action research project that traces the trajectory of a Community of Practice made up of seven occupational therapists working in primary health care and a researcher team, in Brazil. This study mapped the Community of Practice's trajectory between 2013 and 2017 through a group timeline analysis, which occurred gradually, in a collaborative mode., Results: Three distinct phases in the trajectory of the development of the Community of Practice were identified: narrative perspectives were utilised as a means to identify dilemmas and difficulties in practice; the investigation of clients' needs and identification of issues was an ongoing process; and the generation of practice-based knowledge through the development of instruments to sustain clinical reasoning was a creative solution to practical dilemmas., Conclusion: Three main aspects were highlighted: the partnership between researchers and practitioners as a potential avenue for the production of knowledge relevant to professional practice; the negotiation of the dilemma of "putting practice into words" in the context of constantly changing local and global perspectives; and the investigation of situated practice as an important element that can strengthen, strain, resist or even modify hegemonic perspectives of knowledge production in our field., (© 2020 Occupational Therapy Australia.)

The term "basic care" is restricted to a few countries like Brazil. Since the 1978 Alma-Ata Conference, "primary health care" (PHC) has been used to designate care at the first level. The paper summarizes the experiences of evaluation in primary health care, based on the review of the set of manuscripts published by Journal Ciência & Saúde Coletiva. A bibliographic search was made in the SciELO database in the 1996-2020 period. Several descriptors were selected in the spectrum of evaluation and basic care/primary care. The reviewed studies suggest the existence of two analytical periods over the 25 years of the Journal. The first, characterized by the 1996-2010 studies, had the studies of structure/process/results by Donabedian as its predominant theory. The second, from 2011-2020, was Billings' theories on Ambulatory Care Sensitive Conditions (ACSC) and Starfield's PHC attributes. The main dimensions presented in the studies refer to evaluations with a quantitative approach and are induced by the policies and public consultations of the Ministry of Health, and instruments referenced by it.

The purpose of this paper was to analyze the food intake quality in one year-old children seen by a primary healthcare (PHC) service. This is a cross-sectional studied nested within a child oral health cohort study which collected data regarding children born in 2013 and monitored in Porto Alegre for two years. We applied a questionnaire on maternal variables and frequency of pediatric appointments, weight and height measurements, and children's food intake. To that end, a score was generated based on the points assigned according to SISVAN (meaning 'food and nutrition monitoring system,' run by the Brazilian Ministry of Health). A multivariate model was calculated using Poisson regression with robust variance. The sample comprised 249 children. We found 30.5% (76) of poor/regular dietary quality, which in the multivariate model was associated to the guardian's educational background, considering up to incomplete high school (PR = 2.14, CI95% = 1.03-4.44) and complete high school (PR = 1.70, CI95% = 0.81-3.54), as well as their failure to see a dentist (PR = 2.54, CI95% = 1.33-4.84) or having seen one before the age of four months (PR = 1.94, CI95% = 1.01-3.72). It is our conclusion that failing to see a dentist within the first year of life and lower maternal schooling negatively impact on children's dietary quality.

More than 30 years into the anniversary of the Unified Health System (SUS), 40 years after Alma-Ata, and soon after the Astana Conference, the Brazilian Ministry of Health proposes several strategies to strengthen PHC with the creation of the Primary Health Care Secretariat (SAPS). This paper presents the process of developing the national PHC service portfolio, one of the strategies developed by SAPS to strengthen the PHC clinic, and the challenges for the expansion of comprehensive care in the actions developed by the Family Health and Oral Health teams. After the public consultation, from a total of 209 initially listed actions and procedures, including incorporations and exclusions, 210 items were defined, including the actions planned for the integration between primary care and health surveillance. We emphasize that the national portfolio model can be adapted to the reality and municipal context in each of the federation units, including considering the availability of the local care network.

This paper aimed to understand the perceptions of rural male workers, residents in a northern territory of Minas Gerais, Brazil, regarding care practices developed during their production process. This is a qualitative research, with the application of the field observation technique, with records on a diary and accomplishment of individual interviews. Data analysis used the hermeneutic-dialectic method, allowing for the construction of three thematic categories. The men surveyed have a vision based on curative care model and on great dependence on the physician. Some related healthcare practices with habits and healthy life style, such as nutrition; hydration and non-consumption of alcohol and/or tobacco. It is important to highlight that most of the men considered the job as a tool for health care, having a direct relationship with the prevention of occupational risks. In this context, the primary healthcare professionals should encourage the distancing from the biomedical, prescriptive and non-preventive model that still predominates in the vision of the Brazilian population and mainly in the male culture and in rural areas, seeking an integral look for health promotion and maintenance.

Since 2012, the Besrour Centre for Global Family Medicine at the College of Family Physician of Canada has brought together its partners from the Americas annually, to reflect on the evolution of Family Medicine on the continent since Alma-Ata, and to look forward to future challenges. Family doctors are but one element of a strong health system. Family Medicine provides key ingredients to respond to population health needs especially as countries move through the epidemiological transition to face larger burdens of chronic disease and multimorbidity. In this paper, we provide a high-level overview of the state of Family Medicine on the continent. We then analyze trends in the education of family physicians to face this changing landscape, including the emphasis on the leader role of future family physicians. Postgraduate programs in Family Medicine in the Americas are placing increasing emphasis on teaching collaborative care in view of creating truly interdisciplinary health teams for the benefit of patients.

This paper analyzes recent policies in the field of Primary Health Care (PHC) and their possible implications for the care model in the Unified Health System (SUS). Initially, some of the concepts that influenced the models of care in the Brazilian public system are revived, and we argue that the Family Health Strategy (ESF) bases for reorienting care practices in primary care are consistent with the principles of the SUS. Below, we analyze the central elements of new federal policies for PHC. We show that changes in the PHC care model threaten the teams' multidisciplinarity, prioritize acute illness care, focus in individual care, weaken the community territorial approach and establish coverage by registration, which evidence redirection of the health policy, harming the principles of universality, integrality, and equity in the SUS.

In 2019, the Brazilian government launched a new Primary Health Care (PHC) policy for the Unified Health System (SUS). Called "PrevineBrasil", the policy changed the PHC funding for municipalities. Instead of inhabitants and Family Health Strategy (ESF) teams, intergovernmental transfers are calculated from the number of people registered in PHC services and the results achieved in a selected group of indicators. The changes will have a set of impacts for the SUS and the health of the population, which must be observed and monitored. In this paper, possible effects of the new policy are discussed from a brief context analysis of global trends in health systems financing and health services' remuneration models, as well as on the advances, challenges, and threats to PHC and the SUS. Based on the analysis, the new policy seems to have a restrictive purpose, which should limit universality, increase distortions in financing and induce the focus of PHC actions on the SUS, contributing to the reversal of historic achievements in reducing health inequalities in Brazil.

This paper aims to present a debate on the new Brazilian Primary Health Care (PHC) funding policy. We consulted the national and international literature, and we involved municipal, state, and federal PHC managers to develop the payment method. The proposed final model is based on weighted capitation, payment-for-performance, and incentive for strategic actions. Capitation is weighted by the socioeconomic vulnerability, demographic aspects, and municipal adjustment, the payment-for-performance consists of an entire set of 21 indicators, and incentives for strategic actions were facilitated from the maintenance of some specific programs. The results of the simulations pointed to low registration (90 million Brazilians) for the currently estimated coverage (148,674,300 Brazilians). Moreover, they showed an immediate increase in financial resources for 4,200 Brazilian municipalities. We observed that the funding proposal brings Brazilian PHC into the 21st century, points to the strengthening of PHC attributes, and materializes the principles of universality and equity of the Unified Health System.

In this paper we study the working conditions of Community Health Workers in performing house calls within low-income, violent communities in order to understand the challenges in delivering primary care in developing countries. We conducted field studies in two primary healthcare clinics and telephone surveys for 5 months in 2017 within systematic sample of 1690 community health workers based on clinics distributed along the health regions of the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. A number of 759 interviews were completed, approximately 50% of the sample, 86% men and 14% women. Most participants are 30-39 years old (35%), followed by 27% of 40-49 years old participants. Results show that exposure to territorial violence and environmental or health-related diseases significantly affects CHWs. Moreover, CHWs have to develop a significant set of skills to cope with aspects of the territory, and those skills are not present in their training. As community health workers work on the sharp end of the healthcare system, responsible for outreaching, community education, counseling, and social support, our study presents contributions to government and management levels on working conditions inside communities, constraints in assistance, and difficulties in implementing primary care policies., (Copyright © 2019. Published by Elsevier Ltd.)

This paper addresses the primary health care crisis of Rio de Janeiro public health system as of 2018. This municipality has experienced a robust primary care expansion since 2009, adopting Social Organizations for recruiting professionals and managing services, qualifying the infrastructure of units and prioritizing family and community medicine, as well as adopting management practices such as standardized offers, evaluation and pay-for-performance compensation, marketing, among others. Given the recent economic crisis, the municipal manager decided to reduce family health teams, considering the current National Policy of Primary Care and arguing that it is possible to optimize resources (doing more with less). In this process, he faced resistance that was not enough to stop him. Due to the resonance of this city (second largest in Brazil and prominent in the national press) and based on public documents and formulations on management, the crisis expressed in the primary health care of this city was debated around the implications of the adoption of Social Organizations in the sustainability of health services, conducting management processes and their rationalities, as well as the political action of social agents advocating for the SUS and primary care in particular.

In this paper, we present a hierarchical fuzzy model to support patient triage in primary health care. In developing countries like Brazil, public health must usually cover degraded territories; thus, allocating patients to health services is very hard due low availability, enormous demands, and the complexity of assessing patient conditions—which must account for more then physical aspects of patients, but their social conditions as well. This approach combines the fuzzy set theory under the AHP framework in order to illustrate the inherent imprecision in the evaluation of patient risk. Fieldwork was conducted in a primary healthcare facility in Brazil to demonstrate the applicability of the proposed approach. The proposed approach represents criterion in the formation of patients’ risk scores encompassing important aspects of primary care triage such as the structure of families, the conditions of residences, exposure to urban violence, and other aspects of patients’ lives, taking the risk assessment beyond the simple evaluation of symptoms and physiological conditions. Our approach focuses on enforcing decisions of public health workers by improving the awareness of patients’ conditions, which we believe will make the employment of triage criteria uniform and capable of showing tendencies on patients’ risks, as well as avoiding bias in patient triage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The shortage of doctors and their unequal distribution serve as challenges to advancing primary healthcare (PHC) and achieving effective universal healthcare coverage in Brazil. In an effort to use nurses' potential more efficiently, the country is investigating the introduction of the advanced practice nurse (APN) into PHC. This paper presents a situational analysis of the practices of Brazilian nurses based on the following components: regulation, practice, and education.Methods: This is a national multi-method study with triangulated data from a documentary study, a scoping review, and an exploratory study. The regulation component involved the analysis of official normative documents on the regulation of nursing education and nurses' scope of practice. The practice component aimed to identify the practices performed by nurses in Brazilian PHC based on primary studies. The education component intended to identify the practices taught in nursing training based on a survey and interviews with directors of undergraduate nursing programs.Results: Federal legislation in Brazil authorizes nursing graduates to perform a set of advanced practices as part of the PHC nurse's daily routine. They can request and interpret complementary tests and prescribe medication. However, in the local context, municipalities define the scope of this assistance based on technical norms or nursing protocols. Furthermore, this study indicates that undergraduate nursing programs do not fully prepare students to adequately execute these tasks.Conclusions: In the context of Brazilian PHC, advanced practices have already been implemented and respond to main healthcare demands. Therefore, it is unnecessary to introduce the APN as a new professional category. Upon detecting deficiencies in the training process, the current education model should undergo reforms that seek to incorporate the skills compatible with the regulated advanced practices and in-service training for practicing nurses. Regarding the introduction of APN along international lines, this article presents recommendations that may support the operationalization of a Brazilian APN model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Primary Health Care (PHC) is an area of study that has improved remarkably in the last decades. In Brazil, this academic production is highly expressed in the field of Collective Health. This paper aims to analyze the PHC production published in the first 25 years of the "Journal Ciência & Saúde Coletiva" (C&SC). A narrative review was carried out, with analysis of the themes, methods, scale of analysis, partnerships, and authorship. A total of 295 papers were published, which corresponds to 5.9% of the total publications. A growing trend in papers addressing PHC was observed. The studies were mostly empirical (78.6%), with a qualitative approach (58.0%) and were predominantly local or municipal. Studies on health professionals were more frequent. The three prevailing themes were the health care model, PHC performance or effectiveness, and the work process. The profile found dialogues with the rich and diverse experience of Brazilian PHC. However, the incorporation of broader analyses is still challenging. The published papers highlighted the debates and contributed to the reflection and dissemination of the experience of Brazilian PHC, which was and is central to the construction of the Brazilian Health System. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are only a small number of reported intervention studies to improve health literacy among older populations. This paper reports on a study designed to investigate the feasibility and potential impact on health literacy and health practices of embedding an intervention programme to improve health literacy with older people through established primary health care units (PHCUs) in a disadvantaged urban community in Brazil. This investigation utilized a quasi-experimental design, with 42 participants recruited for the intervention group and comparison group. The Alfa-Health Program was offered by a nurse in a PHCU as part of the public universal health system over a period of 5 months, and was compared for its impact on a range of health literacy and self-reported health outcomes with routine health care available for older people. The intervention achieved relatively high levels of participation, and positive feedback from participants. Some improvements in vaccination rates, health literacy and reported health behaviours related to food choices and physical activity were observed. The intervention made good use of existing facilities; the content and methods were well received by the participants. However, there were some difficulties in recruitment and in retention of participants. The study has demonstrated the practical feasibility of delivering a comprehensive health education programme designed to improve health literacy in a PHCU in Brazil. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Prenatal care coverage is still not universal or adequately provided in many low and middle income countries. One of the main barriers regards the presence of socioeconomic inequalities in prenatal care utilization. In Brazil, prenatal care is supplied for the entire population at the community level as part of the Family Health Strategy (FHS), which is the main source of primary care provided by the public health system. Brazil has some of the greatest income inequalities in the world, and little research has been conducted to investigate prenatal care utilization of FHS across socioeconomic groups. This paper addresses this gap investigating the socioeconomic and regional differences in the utilization of prenatal care supplied by the FHS in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil. Methods: Data comes from a probabilistic household survey carried out in 2012 representative of the population living in urban areas in the state of Minas Gerais. The sample size comprises 1,420 women aged between 13 and 45 years old who had completed a pregnancy with a live born in the last five years prior to the survey. The outcome variables are received prenatal care, number of antenatal visits, late prenatal care, antenatal tests, tetanus immunization and low birthweight. A descriptive analysis and logistic models were estimated for the outcome variables. Results: The coverage of prenatal care is almost universal in catchment urban areas of FHT of Minas Gerais state including both antenatal visits and diagnostic procedures. Due to this high level of coverage, socioeconomic inequalities were not observed. FHS supplied care for around 80% of the women without private insurance and 90% for women belonging to lower socioeconomic classes. Women belonging to lower socioeconomic classes were at least five times more likely to receive antenatal visits and any of the antenatal tests by the FHS compared to those belonging to the highest classes. Moreover, FHS was effective in reducing low birthweight. Women who had prenatal care through FHS were 40% less likely to have a child with low birthweight. Conclusion: This paper presents strong evidence that FHS promotes equity in antenatal care in Minas Gerais, Brazil. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Puerperium is a period of significant morbimortality for women, and Primary Health Care (PHC) is important in developing actions to meet women's health needs. This study aimed to systematize the knowledge produced on postpartum care programs actions within PHC at both national and international levels. This is an integrative review of the literature in databases LILACS (Latin American and Caribbean Health Sciences Literature), BDENF (Nursing Database), SciELO (Scientific Electronic Library Online) and PubMed (US National Library of Medicine). Search was performed in the period April-May 2017. Forty-three papers met the selection criteria. Results indicate that PHC has the physical structure to provide puerperae with care, but has a shortage of human and material resources; there is low postpartum consultation coverage and home visits; there is a good evaluation of the incentive for breastfeeding, but focused on the child; international screening of Postpartum Depression through the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale and care shortage for this condition in Brazil. Postpartum care still focuses on care for the newborn and is mostly restricted to the immediate and late puerperium.

This paper aims to show a set of strategies and care management and organization actions that have been undertaken in what was conventionally called the Health Sector Reform of the Government of the Federal District in the period 2015-2018, which was based on the strengthening of primary health care, the organization of secondary care, the establishment of the health regulatory complex, the proposed regionalization and decentralization, the systematization of contracting and contractual implementation, and the proposal and establishment of a new management model for the main public hospital in Brasília.

The history of Primary Health Care (PHC) in the Federal District (DF) is as old as the history of the Federative Unit. The history of Family and Community Medicine (MFC), however, is relatively recent, both locally and nationally. This paper proposes to focus on the fundamental contribution of MFC to advances in Public Health in the Federal District, especially in the last 10 years, after the founding of the Family and Community Medicine Association of Brasília (ABMFC). In order to do so, the most relevant historical events and contexts related to Health Care, Management, Social Control and Medical Education - including Undergraduate course and Residency - were documented, which support this position, in parallel with the evolution of the specialty in the Federal District. Therefore, its organization was divided into four historical stages: until 2008, from 2008 to 2011, from 2011 to 2016, and from 2016 to 2018.

Community health workers in developing countries usually perform house calls in degraded and violent territories. Thus, in this paper we study the effects of urban violence in the performance of CHWs in poorly developed territories, in order to understand the challenges of delivering care to dangerous communities in developing countries. We conducted telephone surveys for 5 months in 2017, within a systematic sample of 2.000 CHWs based on clinics distributed along the health regions of the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. We completed 766 interviews, approximately 40% of the sample, 86% man and 14% women. Most participants are 30 to 39 years old (35%), followed by 27% of 40 to 49 years old participants. As CHWs work on the sharp end of the healthcare system, responsible for outreaching, community education, counseling, and social support, our study presents contributions to government and management levels on working conditions inside communities, constraints in assistance, and difficulties in implementing primary care policies.

Primary health care has been recognized as a critical strategy for improving population health in developing countries. This paper investigates the effect of primary care physicians on the infant mortality rate in Brazil using a dynamic panel data approach. This method accounts for the endogeneity problem and the persistence of infant mortality over time. The empirical analysis uses an eight-year panel of municipalities between 2005 and 2012. The results indicate that primary care physician supply contributed to the decline of infant mortality in Brazil. An increase of one primary care physician per 10,000 population was associated with 7.08 fewer infant deaths per 10,000 live births. This suggests that, in addition to other determinants, primary care physicians can play an important role in accounting for the reduction of infant mortality rates., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Background: Community-based primary care focuses on health promotion, awareness raising, and illnesses treatment and prevention in individuals, groups, and communities. Community Health Workers (CHWs) are the leading actors in such programs, helping to bridge the gap between the population and the health system. Many mobile health (mHealth) initiatives have been undertaken to empower CHWs and improve the data collection process in the primary care, replacing archaic paper-based approaches. A special category of mHealth apps, known as mHealth Data Collection Systems (MDCSs), is often used for such tasks. These systems process highly sensitive personal health data of entire communities so that a careful consideration about privacy is paramount for any successful deployment. However, the mHealth literature still lacks methodologically rigorous analyses for privacy and data protection., Objective: In this paper, a Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA) for MDCSs is presented, providing a systematic identification and evaluation of potential privacy risks, particularly emphasizing controls and mitigation strategies to handle negative privacy impacts., Methods: The privacy analysis follows a systematic methodology for PIAs. As a case study, we adopt the GeoHealth system, a large-scale MDCS used by CHWs in the Family Health Strategy, the Brazilian program for delivering community-based primary care. All the PIA steps were taken on the basis of discussions among the researchers (privacy and security experts). The identification of threats and controls was decided particularly on the basis of literature reviews and working group meetings among the group. Moreover, we also received feedback from specialists in primary care and software developers of other similar MDCSs in Brazil., Results: The GeoHealth PIA is based on 8 Privacy Principles and 26 Privacy Targets derived from the European General Data Protection Regulation. Associated with that, 22 threat groups with a total of 97 subthreats and 41 recommended controls were identified. Among the main findings, we observed that privacy principles can be enhanced on existing MDCSs with controls for managing consent, transparency, intervenability, and data minimization., Conclusions: Although there has been significant research that deals with data security issues, attention to privacy in its multiple dimensions is still lacking for MDCSs in general. New systems have the opportunity to incorporate privacy and data protection by design. Existing systems will have to address their privacy issues to comply with new and upcoming data protection regulations. However, further research is still needed to identify feasible and cost-effective solutions., (©Leonardo Horn Iwaya, Simone Fischer-Hübner, Rose-Mharie Åhlfeldt, Leonardo A Martucci. Originally published in JMIR Mhealth and Uhealth (http://mhealth.jmir.org), 20.03.2019.)

Sexual and reproductive health rights were developed recently as a result from the movements held for Human Rights and citizenship. Delimitations of this subject have not been explored in Brazil yet, even though the importance of developing skills related to this subject is recognized. This paper aims to construct a Sexual and Reproductive health transversal skills framework based on specialists' point of view. A mix methods descriptive exploratory research with the use of the Delphi Technique was developed with 41 specialists in sexual and reproductive health and rights. Three rounds of data gathering were carried out. Of the 36 skills resulting from the qualitative analysis, 32 achieved a general consent and were classified in four domains: ethics and professional principles; leadership and management; community work, health and education, counseling and evaluation; and health care. Results corroborate skills content recommended by the international literature. These skills, which are transversal, may support the development of actions and practices of the health professionals concerning sexual and reproductive health care.

Objective: To evaluate the effectiveness of an intervention to improve young children's oral health‐related behaviours and caregiver knowledge. Methods: This paper reports on findings from a cluster randomized controlled trial, 12 months after of baseline, conducted in Pelotas, Southern Brazil. Two Primary Healthcare Centers (PHCs) and 170 caregiver‐child dyads were assigned to an intervention group, and two PHCs and 174 dyads were assigned to a control group. Children's oral hygiene behaviours, sugar consumption and use of dental services were the outcomes analysed as well as changes in caregiver knowledge. The impact of the intervention was assessed using multilevel mixed‐effects model regressions and the change rate ratios (IRR) were expressed. Results: There were positive and significant changes in favour of the intervention group in children's oral hygiene behaviours, use of dental services, and caregivers' knowledge of oral health. For example, children in the intervention group were more likely to have brushed with fluoride toothpaste at least two times a day (IRR 1.43, 95% CI 1.06‐1.92), to have brushed their teeth before bedtime (IRR 1.37, 95% CI 1.02‐1.84), and to have used dental services for preventive care (IRR 2.54, 95% CI 2.02‐3.19) than children in the control group. Conclusion: This intervention had positive effects on children's oral health‐related behaviours and caregivers' oral health knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Background The emergence of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in 2020 highlighted the relevance of surveillance systems in detecting early signs of potential outbreaks, thus enabling public health authorities to act before the pathogen becomes widespread. Syndromic digital surveillance through web applications has played a crucial role in monitoring the spread of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) virus. However, this approach requires expensive infrastructure, which is not available in developing countries. Pre-existing sources of information, such as encounters in primary health care (PHC), can provide valuable data for a syndromic surveillance system. Here we evaluated the utility of PHC data to identify early warning signals of the first COVID-19 outbreak in Bahia-Brazil in 2020. Methods We compared the weekly counts of PHC encounters due to respiratory complaints and the number of COVID-19 cases in 2020 in Bahia State - Brazil. We used the data from December 2016 to December 2019 to predict the expected number of encounters in 2020. We analysed data aggregated by geographic regions (n = 34) and included those where historical PHC data was available for at least 70% of the population. Results Twenty-one out of 34 regions met the inclusion criteria. We observed that notification of COVID-19 cases was preceded by at least two weeks with an excess of encounters of respiratory complaints in 18/21 (86%) of the regions analysed and four weeks or more in 10/21 (48%) regions. Conclusions Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) syndromic surveillance systems based on already established PHC databases may add time to preparedness and response to emerging epidemics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]