Challenges for Primary Health Care in Brazil: an analysis on the labor of community health workers during a COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

The weaknesses of Primary Health Care can be recognized by analyzing the work of community health workers. Since the situation faced by these professionals represents structural challenges in the health system, this article aims to analyze the situation of these professionals when facing the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil. We analyze their challenges based on data collected from an online survey and netnography. For data analysis, we opted for content analysis, inspired by grounded-theory. We observed three dimensions that represent how community health workers experience the pandemic: changes in work practices, as well as in the interactions between workers and users and the expectation of the future in post-pandemic work. The analyses show that in order to protect these professionals and guarantee the functioning of Primary Health Care, it is necessary to have new strategies to make the dynamics of the workplace feasible.

primary health care; community health workers; COVID-19