The house as a care space: health practices of Community Health Workers in Montes Claros (MG)

Abstract

The present study aimed at analyzing the health care practices developed by community health agents (CHA) within the scope of the Home Visit (VD) with families assisted by the Family Health Strategy (ESF) in the municipality of Montes Claros. Studies in the field of health promotion (PS) have indicated that such practices may sometimes assume more prescriptive, disciplinary, guilty, normative, more directly directed towards the behavioral change of the individual or in a different way may be more dialogic and interactive in relation with families assisted, based on a concept of integral health care. The study analyzed ACS practices in order to understand how these agents are approaching aspects of private life and the public dimension of the health process and what different postures they adopt in interactions with families. We conducted semi-structured interviews with ESF and ACS users from three teams and observed twenty Home Visits (VD) conducted by ACS in the year 2013. It was concluded that ACS practices sometimes assume characteristics that point to the imposition of a know- biomedical power, and others that consider aspects of the subjectivity of the individual / community.