This article discusses practices developed by the community health agency in the Family Health Program of Divinópolis - MG reporting on practices in the fields of Health Promotion and Disease Prevention, taking as main reference the principles established at the 1st International Health Promotion Conference, which took place in Canada in 1986. Field research was carried out by questionnaire, direct observation of work and open interviews with community health agencies. A qualitative approach was chosen in which the concepts and statements of the subjects were dealt with in the light of historical and dialectical materialism, and the organization and analysis of the discourses according to the Discourse of the Collective Subject. We conclude that the community health agency performs actions recommended by the Ministry of Health, and that its health promoting actions are confined to the creation of environments favorable to health, actions in the home. It works more widely in disease prevention, in individual actions, health education for the community and for groups at risk, and controlling infectious disease and parasites such as dengue and worms. Its focus of attention is predominantly the individual and not the family.
community health assistants; health promotion; disease prevention