Community health agent (''agente comunitário de saúde'' or ACS, in
Portuguese language
Portuguese ( or, in full, ) is a western Romance language of the Indo-European language family, originating in the Iberian Peninsula of Europe. It is an official language of Portugal, Brazil, Cape Verde, Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau and ...
) is the title of a specific lay
health care worker developed in
Brazil
Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...
by way of PACS (Program of Community Health Workers) in 1991 as part of the construction of the
Brazilian Unified Health System established by
Constitution
A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organisation or other type of entity and commonly determine how that entity is to be governed.
When these princ ...
al rule in 1988.
The agent, which was said to be inspired on the
barefoot doctor
Barefoot doctors () were healthcare providers who underwent basic medical training and worked in rural villages in China. They included farmers, folk healers, rural healthcare providers, and recent middle or secondary school graduates who receiv ...
s program in
China, is not certified to practice
medicine
Medicine is the science and practice of caring for a patient, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, treatment, palliation of their injury or disease, and promoting their health. Medicine encompasses a variety of health care pr ...
or
nursing
Nursing is a profession within the health care sector focused on the care of individuals, families, and communities so they may attain, maintain, or recover optimal health and quality of life. Nurses may be differentiated from other health ...
, but has the primary task of gathering information on the health status of a small community by means of a close relationship with it. In the initial design, the agent should be one of the residents of a street, neighborhood or surrounding region, and was to be selected on the basis of a good relationship with his neighbors, in addition to the ability to devote eight hours a day to the work. Every agent is supervised by a
doctor
Doctor or The Doctor may refer to:
Personal titles
* Doctor (title), the holder of an accredited academic degree
* A medical practitioner, including:
** Physician
** Surgeon
** Dentist
** Veterinary physician
** Optometrist
*Other roles
** ...
or
nurse
Nursing is a profession within the health care sector focused on the care of individuals, families, and communities so they may attain, maintain, or recover optimal health and quality of life. Nurses may be differentiated from other health c ...
of the health clinic, and home visits are conducted in the coverage area of a basic health unit, thus producing information that can assess the main health problems of his community.
With the proposition of the
Brazilian Ministry of Health in 1994, when it created the a nationwide
family health
Family medicine is a medical specialty within primary care that provides continuing and comprehensive health care for the individual and family across all ages, genders, diseases, and parts of the body. The specialist, who is usually a primary ...
program, called PSF --
Programa de Saúde da Família—health community workers can be found in two different situations in relation to the health care system:
* Linked to a basic health unit not yet attached to the Family Health Program;
* Connected to a basic family health as a member of the
multidisciplinary
Interdisciplinarity or interdisciplinary studies involves the combination of multiple academic disciplines into one activity (e.g., a research project). It draws knowledge from several other fields like sociology, anthropology, psychology, ec ...
team.
Currently (October 2009), there are more than 260,000 community health agents present both in rural and peri-urban areas of small municipalities as well as in highly urbanized and industrialized cities.
DATASUS Statistical Data of Health in Brazil
/ref>
Duties of the community health agent
* Encourage community organization continually;
* Participate in the life of the community primarily through the organizations, encouraging the discussion of issues relating to the improvement of life;
* Strengthen links between the community and health services;
* Inform other team members on the availability of health needs and social dynamics of the community;
* Lead the community for appropriate use of health services;
* Register birth
Birth is the act or process of bearing or bringing forth offspring, also referred to in technical contexts as parturition. In mammals, the process is initiated by hormones which cause the muscular walls of the uterus to contract, expelling the f ...
s, notifiable disease
A notifiable disease is any disease that is required by law to be reported to government authorities. The collation of information allows the authorities to monitor the disease, and provides early warning of possible outbreaks. In the case of live ...
s and epidemiological surveillance Public health surveillance (also epidemiological surveillance, clinical surveillance or syndromic surveillance) is, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), "the continuous, systematic collection, analysis and interpretation of health-relat ...
and death
Death is the irreversible cessation of all biological functions that sustain an organism. For organisms with a brain, death can also be defined as the irreversible cessation of functioning of the whole brain, including brainstem, and brain ...
s;
* Register all the families of their service area;
* Identify and register all pregnant women and children from 0 to 6 years of their service area, through home care;
* Integrate governmental and non-governmental organization
A non-governmental organization (NGO) or non-governmental organisation (see American and British English spelling differences#-ise, -ize (-isation, -ization), spelling differences) is an organization that generally is formed independent from g ...
s, groups of community association A community association is a nongovernmental association of participating members of a community, such as a neighborhood, village, condominium, cooperative, or group of homeowners or property owners in a delineated geographic area. Participation m ...
s (midwive
A midwife is a health professional who cares for mothers and newborns around childbirth, a specialization known as midwifery.
The education and training for a midwife concentrates extensively on the care of women throughout their lifespan; co ...
s, mother's club, etc.).
* Carry out, within his/her level of competence, actions and basic health activities:
** Monitoring of pregnant women and nursing mothers.
** Promotion of breastfeeding
Breastfeeding, or nursing, is the process by which human breast milk is fed to a child. Breast milk may be from the breast, or may be expressed by hand or pumped and fed to the infant. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends that br ...
.
** Monitoring growth and development of children.
** Ensuring compliance with the schedule of vaccination
Vaccination is the administration of a vaccine to help the immune system develop immunity from a disease. Vaccines contain a microorganism or virus in a weakened, live or killed state, or proteins or toxins from the organism. In stimulating ...
and other vaccinations that may be necessary.
** Control of diarrheal diseases.
** Control of acute respiratory infection
Influenza-like illness (ILI), also known as flu-like syndrome or flu-like symptoms, is a medical diagnosis of possible influenza or other illness causing a set of common symptoms. These include fever, shivering, chills, malaise, dry cough, l ...
(ARI).
** Guidance on alternative foods
Food is any substance consumed by an organism for nutritional support. Food is usually of plant, animal, or fungal origin, and contains essential nutrients, such as carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, or minerals. The substance is ing ...
.
** Use of folk medicine
Traditional medicine (also known as indigenous medicine or folk medicine) comprises medical aspects of traditional knowledge that developed over generations within the folk beliefs of various societies, including indigenous peoples, before the ...
.
** Promoting the sanitation
Sanitation refers to public health conditions related to clean drinking water and treatment and disposal of human excreta and sewage. Preventing human contact with feces is part of sanitation, as is hand washing with soap. Sanitation syste ...
and improving the environment
Environment most often refers to:
__NOTOC__
* Natural environment, all living and non-living things occurring naturally
* Biophysical environment, the physical and biological factors along with their chemical interactions that affect an organism or ...
.
References
External links
Programa de Formação de Agentes Locais de Vigilância em Saúde
(In Portuguese)
Global health
Brazilian people in health professions
Health care occupations