Du Brésil au Québec, quelques éléments de réflexion : les agents communautaires de santé brésiliens font le pont entre les familles et les professionnels de la santé

Abstract

The Brazilian unified health system consists of 27,000 family health teams with a network of approximately 300,000 community health agents whose mandate is to link the families they visit every month with health professionals at the family health unit. Since 2003, Quebec has been implementing its health and social services reforms by emphasizing the integration of care and services (public, associative and private) in local networks which have a formal population health responsibility. This commentary aims to underline some similarities and differences between the program of the Brazilian 'units of family health' and that of integrated network clinics (CRI) or Groups of family medicine (GMF) in Quebec. In both cases, a major concern is to organize primary care services in as close proximity as possible to the population of a given territory, and to improve accessibility and adequacy of services. In addition, through these community health agents, Brazil enables the creation of a social security network that assures an effective follow-up of all members of the population with regard to health services.