Sistema Regional de Información
en línea para Revistas Científicas de América Latina,
el Caribe, España y Portugal

This article aimed to discuss the challenges to the implementation of mental health actions in the Family Health Strategy in the context of deinstitutionalization and of the territorialization of care. We described, in the view of the family health managers and teams, the territorial context, forms of identification of the demands, and the mental health support and care practices. We also evaluated the challenges to building powerful psychosocial approaches and network care. The research field consisted of two territories in the municipality of Rio de Janeiro (Manguinhos and Complexo do Alemão), Brazil, with iconic features of the city's urban context, in the period studied (2009-2013). The researchers worked with qualitative and collaborative methodology strategies that included interviews with managers, focus groups with workers, and systematic visits to the field. The data collected showed specific trends, such as the accelerated expansion of the Family Health Strategy with impact on the work process; the discourse of the managers with evidence of opening for the inclusion of mental health in the Strategy; workers' narratives explaining their sense of unpreparedness and a low perception of the therapeutic potential of primary care; violence in the territories causing tension and ambivalence in relation to local authorities; direct association between mental health and violence in daily life.

The article aimed to reveal the production of knowledge on permanent health education based on a survey of Brazilian theses and dissertations produced since the enactment of the first ordinance on the National Policy for Permanent Education, in 2004 until the year 2013. Information on authorship, content, and findings were surveyed and evaluated from the bibliometric perspective. It was found that there is a predominance of authorship by women with training in nursing and social services and with institutional affiliation in Southern and Southeastern Brazil. It was noted that there is a concentration of descriptive and exploratory studies, qualitative approaches and semi-structured interviews as a data collection technique. When analyzing the bibliographic references, there were three categories: Ministry of Health publications, references from various authors, and references related to the method. The research sought to reinforce the need for the inclusion of ‘permanent education’ as a descriptor and revealed a concentration of studies in the fields of health policy, primary health care, and education.

The main objective of this article is to analyse the bettermen of work's policy at a work's local scope through the professors and researchers' perspective. To this end, we have chosen a qualitative study, and a scientific-technical health unit located in the State of Rio de Janeiro was elected such as a research field. For data collection, information was gathered through ten individual semi-structured interviews. Analysis of data was done through discourse analysis and five main empirical categories of analysis were found: precariousness of the human relations; transition to the institutional management model; professors and researchers' labor intensification; pleasure-suffering experiences at work; and, lastly, the bettermen of the work. In addition, we also adopted such as object of study a policy implemented by Brazilian federal government, whose name is DesprecarizaSUS. The results show that the bettermen of work's policy must reach a range of political actions, which are not restricted to the administrative level. In according to the professors and researchers' perspective it is essential to establish the conditions to overcome the deterioration of human relations at work generated by the neoliberal context of public administration.

The study analyzed the development of family health teams in Brazil, based on secondary data from the Ministry of Health on family health teams deployed in December 2012 and 2015 in the National Register of Health Establishments, according to the municipalities' macro regions and population size. Also analyzed were hospitalizations for causes sensitive to primary care, based on the Hospital Information System, with reference to the year hospitalization took place. In 2015, more than 70% of the municipalities had joined the More Doctors Program (almost 40% of the family health teams), ensuring universalization in nearly 100% of the municipalities with smaller populations. In addition to the expansion, which included more than twenty million people, also analyzed was the replacement of the teams that had been deployed before, suggesting less turnover and fixation of the professionals, which may have been encouraged by funding from the Ministry of Health that reduced the municipalities' costs. Hospitalizations for causes sensitive to primary care further reduced after program implementation, suggesting its contribution to improving access to and the performance of primary care. There are still important challenges ahead, and the program is an effort to achieve system universality.

The urgency of changes in the field of mental health derived from the redirection of the assistance model introduced the issue of training as a decisive element to support of the Brazilian psychiatric reformation process. This article presents the results of the “Mental health policy in the city of Rio de Janeiro: A study on the methods of training and qualification of mental health teams” research project, which aimed to study how the psychosocial care teams at the psychosocial care centers in the municipality of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, produce their continuing education agenda in mental health and how the professionals recognize the ways of producing knowledge, thinking, and acting at the place where work and the production of care come together. We use simple observation and focus groups to collect data. The analysis of the material sought to identify the association of the discursive practices, which draw existential territories, with the pedagogical practice in the work process, joined with the analyzer concept. In the investigation process it was possible to identify the production of new knowledge references, produced during work, capable of transforming the labor world and enabling ethical, responsible care, one that is focused on the users’ interests.

When considering the Brazilian context of increasing agricultural productivity associated with monocultures, agribusiness, and the intensive use of pesticides, various negative externalities emerge as having social and environmental impact and affecting public health. The purpose of this article is to discuss the strengthening of agribusiness in Brazil, including its construction as a historical model of modernization expanding nationwide and growing in the Northeast. It also aims to address the issue of pesticides and health, correlating them to cases of human poisoning. To this end, we analyzed the modernization model anchored on the agribusiness, transgenics, and pesticides tripod, and discussed the cases of pesticide poisoning, via agricultural and domestic uses, through the systematization of National Toxicopharmacological Information System database between the years of 1999 and 2011 in the Northeast. We note that in recent years, agribusiness has strengthened itself and the number of pesticide poisoning cases have grown, especially in the Northeast, which has the highest rates of mortality caused by pesticide poisoning in Brazil, mainly affecting farm workers.

Professional education needs to be considered and implemented as a strategic move, considering local and regional technological potential, enhancing their interaction with the labor world and, fundamentally, with the local community, with the primary function of citizen training and preparing the youth to be active agents in the social, economic, and cultural development processes. Based on this premise, this paper proposes an analysis of enrollment in professional education, especially data and information relevant to understanding the current scenario of the training of human resources in health promoted by federal institutions in Brazil. The study shows an apparent detachment between the federal vocational education network expansion policies in the health area and the Ministry of Health's needs to address the lack of mid-level health professionals, especially in the North, Northeast and Midwest, and particularly outside of the major urban centers.

In 1880, Marx wrote and published A Worker's Inquiry to investigate the living and health conditions of the French working class. In addition to the research itself, it had to do with politicizing and strengthening the French workers‘ struggle organizations. A Worker's Inquiry is, therefore, an investigation and politicization mechanism of the working class. The purpose of this assay was to analyze how current the 1880 A Worker's Inquiry is today. Four aspects of it were discussed: Development and use, labor accidents, working hours and intensity of the work, wages, and living conditions. The consistency of A Worker's is due to the Marxist theory that supports it. This essay states that Marx’ questionnaire and the form of “worker's inquiry” – understood as a mechanism for research and politicization – remain valid.

The study had as objective to avaliate, through an integrative review of the literature, the produced knowledge about the activities carried out by community health agents in Brazil and some other countries. The search of data has included: Journals of Higher Education Personnel Improvement Coordination Website; Scientific Electronic Library Online; Latin American and Caribbean Health Sciences Literature; Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System Online and US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health, and has happened from 2010 to 2014. Of the 240 studies identified, 27 were included in this review. The literature highlights the functions that the Community Health Agents have been promoting in a variety of actions in different geographical and cultural contexts. The Community Health Agent has different insertions in the labor market experiences and the fragilities that come from the communities’ socio-cultural contexts, to the need of greater recognition of the health system and the health staff. Its position, between the community and the health staff, is strategic and contributes to the health of the community. Therefore, it should be given proper training to their performance and access to lifelong education, resources and a greater appreciation of the health staff with the society.