Contribution of community health workers to primary health care performance in Brazil

ABSTRACT OBJECTIVE To associate the strength of community health workers interventions with primary health care strategies for women’s and children’s health, diabetes, and hypertension. METHODS This is a cross-sectional study assessing 29,778 family health teams working in primary health care in Brazil in 2014. The association between community health workers activity levels and primary health care facilities was analyzed using multiple logistic regression. RESULTS We found higher levels of community health workers activities strongly associated with primary health care practices (OR = 6.88) for those activities targeting hypertension management, followed by children’s health (OR = 6.56), and women’s health (OR = 6.21). CONCLUSIONS At a time when Brazil discusses whether community health workers should or should not remain in the same scale-up and skill level as they currently are, our results reinforce the importance of these workers for the care model advocated by the Brazilian Unified Health System.

Bibliographic Details

Main Authors:	Santos,Alaneir de Fátima dos, Rocha,Hugo André da, Lima,Ângela Maria de Lourdes Dayrell de, Abreu,Daisy Maria Xavier de, Silva,Érica Araújo, Araújo,Lucas Henrique Lobato de, Cavalcante,Isabela Cristina Carreiro, Matta-Machado,Antônio Thomaz Gonzaga da
Format:	Digital revista
Language:	English
Published:	Faculdade de Saúde Pública da Universidade de São Paulo 2020
Online Access:	http://old.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0034-89102020000100300
Tags:	Add Tag No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!