Trabalho, Educação e Saúde - TES (Work, Education and Health) is an open access scientific journal, edited by the Joaquim Venâncio Polytechnic School of Health, from Oswaldo Cruz Foundation.
Editorial
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Conjuncture Note
The COVID-19 pandemic context is related to the interaction of human beings with the environment, as we invade and destroy important ecological niches, creating unsustainable models of animal production and trade. Washing your hands is one of the most effective actions to prevent COVID-19. But how to
follow this procedure where water is not guaranteed as often as necessary? Another important aspect of surveillance is chronic exposure to air contamination, favoring high mortality rates from COVID-19. The populations of the countryside, the forest and the waters are also one of the most vulnerable groups and, at the same time, have ways of life that are decisive for the socio-environmental sustainability of the planet. Crisis offices, popular committees, solidarity articulations, platforms, academic-popular observatories, popular health barriers, internet portals for participatory monitoring are some of the ways that, spontaneously, have emerged in the favelas and in the territories of traditional peoples to cope with facing COVID-19, given the absence of effective policies, mainly at the federal level. We have to create methods, strategies and initiatives that enable health and environmental surveillance to contribute to solving problems and needs in a horizontal, participatory, democratic and scientifically qualified way.
Conjuncture Note
Racism is a structural system that generates behaviors, practices, beliefs and prejudices that underlie unfair and avoidable inequalities, based on race or ethnicity. In health, racism can manifest itself in several ways, including institutional racism, which often occurs covertly. The coronavirus pandemic has been a challenge for countries with profound inequalities. In Brazil, despite the absence of information disaggregated by race or ethnicity, and even when collected, oftentimes recorded with errors; it is known that black people will suffer more sever impacts of the pandemic as well as its various negative outcomes. In this article we recall historical aspects and their relationship with the vulnerability of black population as well as suggest specific actions to combat racism and its devastating consequences in the context of COVID-19.
Conjuncture Note
The text discusses the difficulties to face COVID-19 raised by the speech and the actions defended by the federal government. In contrast to the governments of countries that have achieved effective results in controlling the pandemic, representatives of the Brazilian government, among which the President of the Republic stands out, are continually disqualify publicly both risks and the adoption of scientifically based prevention measures, in particular social isolation, defending, in its place, the so-called ‘herd immunity’. The reiterated argument is that there is an opposition between the preservation of the economy and life, the former being a priority. Such manifestations are accompanied by constraints on state and municipal governments in carrying out locally defined preventive measures. This attitude expresses contempt for human life and an acute disregard for the socially most vulnerable population, which, in countries with chronic inequalities, such as Brazil, suffer the most serious effects of an epidemic.
Conjuncture Note
The theory of social conditions as fundamental causes of health, in conjunction with the notions of social class and territory, is used in reflections about the trajectory and distribution of the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic in the country. It starts with theoretical syntheses, approaches and evidences from the author’s works on health inequality in Brazil. It is understood that the ‘social environment’, of a relational and structured nature, affects the spread and distribution of the disease among the groups. Class differences in circumstances of work, location and housing are mentioned. Regarding social differences in the risk of fatal outcome of the disease, the previous distribution of adverse conditions and differences in the way health institutions process people are considered. As proposed by the theory, inequalities in resources, information, dispositions and capacity would be affecting the social distribution of the effects of the pandemic in Brazil.
Conjuncture Note
Based on political, economic and social conditions prior to the pandemic, the text discusses the dramatic consequences of the privatization processes of the Brazilian Unified Health System for the implementation of effective actions against COVID-19. The reforms promoted by the Brazilian State in recent years, namely tax adjustments, labor and social security reforms and Constitutional Amendment 95, correlate, as preconditions to the current scenario and related to the privatization of the national health system, the effects of which have been harmful to the working class, as well as to the public health. In this context, determined by the devastating corporate form of capital, the transfer of public resources to private health sector is brutal. It is deduced, therefore, that the pandemic deepens the impacts in term of the vulnerability of labor and the de-financing of the Unified Health System in its multiple dimensions. The text concludes by emphasizing that the pedagogy of the catastrophe caused by the pandemic does not ensure the improvement or overcoming the current sociability, and may even result in more barbarism, which, ultimately, can only be prevented if new social norms are created for the benefit of the entire of humanity.
Conjuncture Note
Since January 2020, the world has been experiencing an unprecedented health crisis, after the World Health Organization declared the Public Health Emergency of International Importance as a surveillance strategy and immediate response to the COVID-19 pandemic. In Brazil, the economic and political chaos resulting from the 2016 coup d’état deepened the pandemic crisis, exposing the gap in social inequalities and, in particular, health inequalities, and the neglect of life in all its dimensions. This reflection brings to the scene conjunctural elements (economic-political and socio-environmental) necessary for the understanding of technical surveillance interventions, with emphasis on quarantine and social isolation, as emergency normative strategies for individual and collective life, used to control bodies and places. In this catastrophic scenario, vulnerable territories are doubly penalized, for their peripheral condition in the space of cities and for their systematic exclusion of citizenship rights, requiring, from governments, interventions that consider the continental dimension and the country’s economic-cultural heterogeneity; social and health inequalities; and the ability to respond in a timely manner to each sphere of management that is the exclusive responsibility of the State, within the scope of Health Surveillance, Specialized Assistance and Primary Health Care in the Unified Health System.
Conjuncture Note
In early February 2020, the Brazilian government declared a public health emergency. In the second half of March, with the advance of the COVID-19 cases and the occurrence of the first death, other measures, considered emergency, started to be adopted. This text deals specifically with a set of measures with a direct impact on labor relations. In doing so, it seeks to reflect on how the context of the pandemic has been converted to government and business sectors as a pretext for the advancement of precarious work, drawing a scenario that is certainly harsher and more harmful to the health and life of those and those who make a living out of their own job.
Review
Review
Article
This article aims to present the main paths and impasses regarding the deinstitutionalization process in four cities in Greater Vitória, in Brazil. The described scenario occurred through operationalized research with the use of focus groups formed by workers from the Psychosocial Care Network. After the content analysis, deinstitutionalization from the perspective of Psychosocial Care Centers and Residential Therapeutic Services, as well as other important subthemes, such as the care network and the centrality of psychiatric hospitalization in the care process, resulted as themes. We consider that, despite the structural difficulties of the network, there is the engagement of many of these professionals in the work processes and we emphasize the importance of resistance in the fight for the guarantee of the Psychiatric Reform to ensure, in fact, the process of deinstitutionalization.
Article
This study characterizes the social dimension in the contexts represented in problem situations in a São Paulo state medical course that uses Problem-Based Learning. A total of 69 problem situations were analyzed, triggering the learning process from the first to the fourth grade and their respective tutor guides. To read the material, the Social Dimension Analysis Guide was used, developed by the researchers based on related documents and literature. For analysis, the discursive textual analysis method was adopted. The comparison between the learning objectives presented in the problem situations and in the guides showed disagreements and dichotomies. The characterization of the explored contexts did not portray the real territory: social equipment was scarcely addressed, but the areas of competence of individual, collective and management care placed a satisfactory emphasis on public policies. The analyzes of areas of risk, diversity and vulnerable groups were superficial and the intersectoral approach was little used. It is hoped, with these results, to provoke reflections about the construction of problem situations in problem-based learning, because the deepening of the description, such as the expansion of its approach, may favor the theoretical-practical articulation, the extended learning and the training medical care focused on comprehensive care.
Article
The objective of this study was to identify typologies of precarious work in Primary Care from the perspective of Druck and Franco. Qualitative netnographic study carried out on the YouTube virtual platform, with Brazilian videos. Nine videos were selected for analysis. Iconographic analysis and thematic content analysis were used. The research was carried out from July 2018 to January 2019. Based on the results, four categories of analysis were identified: vulnerability of forms of insertion, intensification of work and outsourcing, loss of individual and collective identity, condemnation and abandonment of employee rights. The types of precarious work found included insecure and temporary hiring, excessive workload among nurses, poor working conditions, contracting via social organizations, living with fear of unemployment, loss of labor rights and wage delays, which have repercussions at work, in the worker’s life and in assistance to patients. We infer that the typologies of the precarious work identified tend to contribute to the distortion of Primary Healthcare services, given that they are not in line with its principles and guidelines, hindering professionals’ understanding of health factors and conditions, necessary to ensure integral care.
Article
The objective of the study was to understand the perception of managers, providers and auditors of the process of contracting within the Brazilian Unified Health System (Sistema Único de Saúde). This was a descriptive study, using a qualitative approach, carried out in Maringá, Paraná, in September and October 2017, with managers, service providers and auditors who work in the system. Data were collected through guiding questions. The analysis led to the definition of two categories: opportunities and barriers in the contracting process with the Health System; evaluation and use of instruments in the System audit. Regarding the opportunities, it was evidenced that the contracting process improves the quality of health management based on specific legislation and that the main barrier is related to the scale of values practiced by the Health System. In relation to the second category, the analysis indicates that the use of instruments allows the standardization of parameters, which provides greater assertiveness to the contracting process. We conclude that it is necessary to use an audited instrument validated and agreed with providers, in order to ensure transparency and better results in term of the agreed upon goals.
Article
The objective of this study was to analyze the relationship between the overexploitation of the workforce and the concept of wear and tear on workers in enterprises installed in two municipalities of the Confection Center of the interior of the State of Pernambuco, Brazil. The study, based on a qualitative approach, was developed in 2017 and 2018 in the municipalities of Toritama and Santa Cruz do Capibaribe. Fourteen semi-structured interviews were carried out, following a pre-established script organized in three priority axes: worker profile; social and work aspects; and aspects related to health. In analyzing the data, the totality and history of social relations and their interaction with particular social processes (dialectical method) were considered. The essential guiding categories for understanding the structure and dynamics of the workers’ health-disease process were: overexploitation of the workforce, working hours, work process and production. The concepts of precariousness, intensification, workloads, wear of the workforce were also important theoretical factors of the analysis. The overexploitation of the workforce was an essential element for understanding the process of premature wear and tear of the workforce, revealing a tendency towards premature exhaustion of these workers over the years.
Article
The research that originated this article aimed to analyze social representations of emergency professionals about the prevention of recurrences due to suicide attempt. It was a research based on the theory of social representations in the procedural approach, with thirty emergency workers from a public hospital in Bahia, Brazil, carried out in 2017. The question was based on the understanding of these professionals about the prevention of recurrence of suicide attempt, and the analysis was performed using the cognitive network analysis model. The semantic network was composed of 260 vertices and 431 edges with an average degree equal to 2.61. The main terms that radiated meaning to the discourse of the social group were ‘monitoring’, ‘psychologist’ and ‘patient’, demonstrating a perception of prevention for recurrences by suicide attempts in a positively complex and multidisciplinary way. Participants understand that the phenomenon has particularities that require both in-hospital transformations – by encouraging demystification and combating prejudice of patients at risk of dying from suicide, restructuring of management, screening and monitoring during the stay of hospitalization – as well as extra-hospital, evoking the work between the different levels of care and support networks, in addition to dynamism and comprehensive care as a resource to prevent recurrences of these patients.
Article
This paper investigates the current configurations of the theme of health in the professional education curricula in Physical Education (PE) in a state university. It presents partial results of research based on data collected through document analysis of the Course Pedagogical Projects (professional degree course and bachelor’s degree course) and semi-structured interviews with seven teachers who participated in the curricular reformulations of these courses. The analyses were based on Anthony Giddens’ structuration theory, which permitted to highlight the agent-structure relationship and the institutional reproduction/changes. The results show that the current configurations of the theme of health are linked mainly to the Natural and Biological Sciences (with greater evidence in the bachelor’s degree course) and, to a lesser extent, to the Social and Human Sciences/Collective Health (occurring in both courses). The study highlights the challenge of ensuring greater presence of the Social and Human Sciences/Collective Health in the professional education curricula, since PE has increasingly been required to integrate multidisciplinary teams and projects based on expanded health policies.
Article
The objective was to evaluate the educational process carried out by the Extended Family Health and Primary Care Center in the care of systemic arterial hypertension and diabetes mellitus in Recife, Brazil. An evaluative research was conducted, guided by Paulo Freire’s educational theory, with the elaboration of a theoretical model. Four professionals from the Extended Family Health and Primary Care Center, eleven professionals from the Family Health Strategy and ten patients with hypertension and / or diabetes participated in the study. Focus groups were conducted, and the data collected between November 2018 and February 2019 were submitted to content analysis. The coexistence of use by professionals of banking and problematizing concepts was evidenced. Vertical and little discussed by the professionals practices as well as a curative and medical-centered view in the patients’ statements were identified. There were also transformative actions in the work process of professionals and reports of improvements in the health conditions of patients participating in educational groups. In addition, the incentive to seek rights during educational activities led to the achievement of the implementation of the Academia da Cidade [City Gym] Program in the territory. These findings reveal the transformative power of educational actions when they become participatory and are built based on the experiences and needs of the population.
Article
The article analyzes the setbacks in the National Mental Health Policy in the period between 2016 and 2019, based on a study of the norms issued by the federal government and documents of a public nature, and on the study of data from the Brazilian Ministry of Health regarding the mental health network of the Unified Health System. All normative documents that make up a set of ‘reorientations’ of the Policy were evaluated, in addition to those that directly affect it, including opposing positions issued by the executive, legislative and judicial branches. The analysis indicates the first effects of these changes in the Psychosocial Care Network, such as encouraging psychiatric hospitalization and financing for therapeutic communities, actions based on a prohibitionist approach to issues related to the use of alcohol and other drugs. The analysis of the management data allows to affirm that there is a tendency of stagnation in the pace of implantation of community-based services. This study aims to contribute to a better understanding of the fundamentals and the strategic direction of the changes, which imply a setback in the Psychiatric Reform guidelines, aiming to broaden the debate on the forms of resistance to the dismantling of the National Mental Health Policy.
Article
Social support of the institutions to family members of homicide victims is discussed based on the analysis of the perceptions of professionals in primary health care and social assistance who work in the city of São Gonçalo, Brazil. Interviews were conducted with 21 professionals from Family Health Units, Extended Family Health Center and Specialized Social Assistance Reference Center, in 2018. Some professionals recognize the suffering triggered by the loss of family members due to homicide and physical and mental health impacts of this event on the population. However, they demonstrate difficulties in addressing this issue and little acknowledge the possibilities that these services offer in supporting these families. We conclude that health and social assistance services are not prepared to meet the needs of family members of victims of homicide, partly due to the perpetuity of violence in the areas where they work and sometimes live. The problem demands the formulation of public policies to support these families and to raise awareness and improve training for professionals who deal with this population. The absence of social support reinforces the isolation of the relatives of victims and intensifies the impacts on health, which can even lead to premature death.
Article
The social context of the capitalist production system impacts labor relations, including precarious scenarios marked by instability and insecurity for workers. Here we discuss data derived from a qualitative study carried out in the municipality of Erechim, Brazil, from February to April 2018, which investigated the relationship between work, corporeality and health based on the analysis of narratives produced by recyclable material collectors and ethnographic incursions in their work context. We sought to problematize the incidence of delivery of the body to work and its repercussions in the case of the collectors participating in the research, considering the health dynamics that integrate the physical, psychological and social dimensions of these subjects. The results indicate the circumstances of vulnerability to which they are exposed. As can be seen from their narratives, the work is linked to the need, leading them to disregard the adverse conditions involved in its realization or to adapt to them, even though the costs of this process are high. This reality indicates the urgency of analysis of the relationships between work, health and social inequality in the Brazilian context, considering that health is a fundamental human right and its enjoyment must be available to everyone.
Article
The pandemic caused by the new coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) is a worldwide public health emergency. Some occupational categories, such as health workers, are at high risk of exposure to the infection. This article aims to summarize and systematize aspects related to the health and working conditions of health workers in this pandemic, especially in Brazil, successful experiences in the protection of healthcare work in other countries and recommendations for the Brazilian context. Immediate initiatives to protect and combat the pandemic in other countries included as strategic points: adequacy of working conditions; systematic testing and specific assistance actions for healthcare workers. In order to face COVID-19 in Brazil, the following recommendations stand out: review of service flows and definition of characteristics and conditions for each stage of service; establishment of COVID-19 as a work-related disease for exposed groups; effective registration of ‘occupation’ in information systems; establishment of special conditions for carrying out work in the event of an epidemic; attention to working hours and actions to reduce occupational stressors. The performance of these workers is a central element in facing the pandemic, therefore, the plan to combat COVID-19 must include protection and preservation of their physical and mental health.
Article
Institutional and social expectations related to teaching work have intensified. The teaching activity is nowadays characterized by precarious work, associated with a conception of the school as a company, in which multiple work links with a high workload are frequent, with negative consequences on teaching health. In the present study, we report qualitative findings obtained from the analysis of posts by teachers of basic education in a virtual forum on nutrition education. Such spontaneous discussions by the teachers revealed a contrast between the intense concern with the nutritional health of their students that masks the attention to these issues in relation to themselves. The incorporation of socially imposed expectations by teachers in order to solve complex issues such as obesity among students seems to acquire such dimensions that obliterate the discussion on nutritional health itself. These expectations, when imposed without the means to meet them, can contribute to teacher suffering. We also highlight the importance of the existence of spaces and listening conditions for teachers involved in education on health issues in schools.
Article
The research aimed to analyze the profile of professionals working in primary care in municipalities in Amazonas and the relationship with provision and fixation in these places. It was an analytical, descriptive study, of a quantitative nature, carried out from 2014 to 2016. Data from doctors, nurses and dentists working in primary care in twenty municipalities in Amazonas (Brazil) were analyzed, totaling 397 professionals. Medical professionals are less fixated, have less relatives, local residency and belong to other locations. Nursing professionals have more specializations and management functions. The health regions of Juruá, Triângulo, Madeira and the surroundings of Manaus have fewer professionals in primary care. The municipalities of Parintins, Itacoatiara and Tabatinga have a larger population outside the capital and have a greater number of professionals. There is a tendency for professionals to seek work in capitals and cities with a greater offer of services to carry out their health activities. In turn, municipalities with difficult access face a greater challenge to promote the establishment and provision of health professionals.
Article
Home care services contribute to the reduction of hospital burden, deinstitutionalization, humanization and comprehensive care. Therefore, the professional improvement of the teams of home care services is extremely relevant, since the work moves from health institutions to the private life of the user, requiring detachment from traditional practices and understanding of home relationships. In this sense, a qualitative research was conducted in Recife, Brazil, from December 2018 to April 2019, which aimed to understand how different subjects (n = 14) perceive and interpret the effects of training offered to teams from the care services home based in the city, using conceptual elements described by Abbad about training evaluation. The findings demonstrate that there was a positive perception of the subjects about the effects of training, but also indicate that there were few changes in services, mainly due to the lack of multiplication of the knowledge acquired for the professionals who were not trained and the insufficient psychosocial support to the application. practice of the contents. The issues raised in this study demonstrate the complexity of home care in Brazil and the need to formulate educational and organizational strategies that enhance care within the home.
Article
This article sought to evaluate the deliberative effectiveness in a municipal health council, in order to produce information that contributes to the improvement of the deliberative democracy. This is a case study, with a qualitative approach, about the Municipal Health Council of Criciúma, Brazil. Data collection was performed in 2018 based on the following strategies: participant observation, 12 semi-structured interviews and document analysis. The organized and systematized data resulted in three thematic categories, namely: functioning; power relations between the State and Civil Society; and conflicting issues. As a result, it was found that the principles of equal participation, deliberative equality, freedom of thought, as well as plurality of composition, the topics discussed, the rules for defining the agenda and for the occupation of the presidency make this forum more democratic collegiate body. However, the principle of deliberative inclusion is undermined by issues related to the divergence of interests, especially personal and political interests to the detriment of collective interests, which is the biggest obstacle related to deliberative effectiveness. In this scenario, the importance of informing and raising awareness among councilors is evident, in order to expand the capacity for intervention in the ethical, political and knowledge fields in the field of democracy and health.
Article
The study aims to discuss living conditions and emancipatory health promotion based on descriptive evidence from the reports of the Pastoral Land Commission, references on the struggle for access to land in southeastern Pará (Northern Brazil), led by landless migrants and articulated with the peasant movement. As a result, the question arose: to what extent did access to land promote improvements in the living conditions of landless migrants in southeastern Pará? It is a qualitative study, based on the findings expressed in documents and reports of the Pastoral Land Commission in the light of post-colonial theories and public health. It presents a critical discussion about the neo-extractive capitalist development model and the modern world-system, manufacturer of exclusion and subordination, proposing epistemological and ontological alternatives, in articulation with the emancipatory social struggles in the fields and in the cities. There is evidence in the reports of the Pastoral Land Commission and in the official data of the Colonization and Agrarian Reform Institute that access to land in the analyzed region has changed the living and health conditions of thousands of landless people in a context of high conflicts and violence in the countryside.
Article
The COVID-19 pandemic is not just a health problem, it is considered a profound shock to our societies and economies, highlighting a care crisis in which health professionals, especially women, are at the center of service and response efforts. Thus, this article aimed to problematize care practices during the COVID-19 pandemic with a focus on the right to protection for women health professionals, according to Michel Foucault’s conceptions of self-care, considering the power-knowledge axis. The study goes on to question about the crisis of care and makes self-care of health workers visible especially during the COVID-19 pandemic as a possible way for the reversion of domination practices through the creation of freedom practices, affirming the production of care as a creator of value and respect for the life of all.
Article
The aim of this study was to analyze the profile of theses and dissertations on transvestite, transsexuality and health in the stricto sensu Post-Graduate Programs in Brazil, through a study based on the theoretical-methodological framework of bibliometric analysis. The 65 selected works were extracted from the Theses and Dissertations Catalog of the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel and the Brazilian Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations. It appears that most of the productions are dissertations (82%) coming from the Graduate Programs in Collective Health (27%) and from Federal Institutions of Higher Education (65%), located in the South and Southeast (70%). The qualitative approach was the most used (82%) and the transsexualizing process in the Unified Health System was the predominant theme (35%). The study revealed that Brazilian theses and dissertations on the transvestite-transsexuality-health triad have been on the rise in the last twenty years, with a decrease in the focus on the illness of transvestites and transsexuals and an increased focus on the social, organizational and political aspects that interfere in the access of these people to health services. Even so, it is necessary to expand research on the theme to other regions of the country, positively impacting scientific production and a more equitable and universal health system.
Article
This is a qualitative study that analyzed the professionals’ perceptions of imprisoned mother’s babies. Professionals from São Paulo (Brazil) from the legal, public policy, social, health, education, security and religious volunteering areas were interviewed. The results showed that the romantic look of motherhood survives behind bars. Thus, the baby mobilizes feelings of love, compassion and joy. However, feelings of anger, sadness and pity also emerge for encountering babies in a place of segregation and punishment. The baby may be stuck with the stigma of the mother’s criminality, represented with hopelessness and prejudice by some professionals with the expression ‘evil seed’. Professionals feel touched by the prison maternity scenario, expressing contradictory feelings of sadness and joy, hope and hopelessness, anger and compassion. The subjective implications and representations about the baby in a prison context, therefore, support the care offered by the professionals, their attitudes towards the prisoners, the actors involved and the future actors: the babies.
Article
Tuberculosis, a global problem related to the population’s living conditions, is a historically complex problem. In recent years, social mobilization has become a fundamental component of disease surveillance. In this article, the concepts of social mobilization for tuberculosis surveillance and control, present in the National Tuberculosis Control Program (2006), in the Strategic Plan for Tuberculosis Control (2007-2015), are critically analyzed in the document description of the implementation of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Malaria and Tuberculosis Program in Brazil and in six Brazilian scientific productions, from 2007 to 2016, that address the theme. Specifically, the study aims to understand these concepts, as well as discuss the relationships between them. All were examined through content analysis. Although favorable to social mobilization, the texts refer to some theoretical and epistemological contradictions. Social mobilization is presented according to a functionalist and utilitarist conception (positivist paradigm of science), with regulatory rather than emancipatory intent. It seems to be a social mobilization in the service of the domestication of society, which disregards the life experiences of the population and the complex structure of production and social reproduction of the disease.
Article
The concept of childhood has changed according to the economic and power structures of society, as well as the values that influence the care of children and adolescents. With neoliberalism, constitutional rights were reduced, the values defended in the Constitution were devalued and Civil Society Organizations became responsible for the care of this population. This study, carried out in 2018, aimed to analyze how values and professional training influence health promotion in the care of children and adolescents in a Civil Society Organization in the city of Florianópolis, Brazil. The research used a qualitative approach with semi-structured interviews and thematic analysis. The results were organized into two categories: Professional training: overcoming technicality in search of health promotion; and Moral education, values and citizenship: health promotion against neoliberal values. It is essential to discuss professional training in search of more humanized care at the university in order to promote critical individuals with the capacity to reflect, transform and recreate their work. In addition, moral education and health promotion seek elements to transform the status quo that goes beyond medical practices and encompasses the promotion of a culture of peace and human rights and the emancipation of human beings.
Article
The article aimed to analyze the importance attributed to health teaching skills by students and university professors of Nursing and Medicine courses. The data were collected in 2017 based on the application of two health teaching skill scales to 315 students and 80 teachers. Differences between groups of students (type of course, institution and age group) and teachers (type of course, institution, length of service and type of teaching practice) were analyzed using non-parametric tests. The results indicated a high importance of health teaching skills for both teachers and university students. Significant differences were also observed between students from the Nursing and Medicine courses, from public and private institutions, as well as from professors with different working times and teaching practices. This result encourages research to assess the health teaching skills adopted in university courses, as they directly contribute to the development of teacher training actions.
Ensaio
The COVID-19 epidemic required immediate planning by the Brazilian Ministry of Health. The government’s actions showed contradictions between the presidency and the Ministry of Health. The purpose of this article is to reconstruct the actions of the federal government in confronting the COVID-19 pandemic. Such actions resulted in a policy organized on three fronts: the role of governors; the false dilemma between the economy and health and; the militarization of the Ministry of Health, done by filling the staff with military personnel. In the initial four months after the first registered case of COVID-19, the Ministry of Health left the front line of the actions and the states conducted the primary measures of confrontation through the purchase of materials and services from the private sector. A false division was established between the sanitary measures and the economic recovery measures. The conduct of public health was passed on to the military, changing the technical-political field. The way of management based on the denial of the epidemic and the absence of proposals by the Ministry of Health was characterized by the abandonment of health protection measures, objectified in the question ‘So what?’, delivered by the president of the republic when asked about deaths in the Brazil.
Ensaio
Distance education has advanced in the Brazilian context, where it is perceived as the object of study in this essay. When considering the changes that took place in the teaching work process because of the distance modality, this study aimed to tension the development of the productivity of teaching work through its rationalization and its possible relationship with the value of the workforce in a broad sense. Specifically, it analyzes the functionality of education for the expanded reproduction of capital, as well as its positive contradictions and limits and having as its motto the Bologna process, the implications of an educational free zone. The main conclusions were: if, on the one hand, there is a democratization of access to education, the rationalization of work, in addition to enabling more accessible education, is immediately related to the precariousness and alienation of the teaching worker and, intrinsically and more broadly, with the decrease in the value of the general labor force, since there is a decrease related to the costs production of the labor force merchandise.
Erratum