This article discusses key theoretical/conceptual and technical/operational issues underlying the services provided and practices performed by physicians in the Family Health Program (PSF) in Brazil. Three different data sources were used: a) literature from the international debate on health promotion and family health; b) documents and proposals by the Brazilian Ministry of Health; and c) data from empirical studies on the implementation of the PSF in selected areas of Brazil. Within the new organizational framework proposed by the Program, the article attempts to identify the limits and chanenges to the development of health-related knowledge and practice capable of helping expand the case-resolving capacity and integrality of individual and conective health interventions within the basic care provided under the Unified Health System (SUS).
Family health; health promotion; biomedicine; medical practice