Along the next five months, the IBGE will visit more than 100 thousand households in the entire country to survey a number of aspects of the health of Brazilians. The National Survey of Health - PNS is the result of an agreement between the IBGE and the Ministry of Health and supported by the International Labor Organization - ILO. Its first edition was carried out in 2013.

According to Maria Lúcia Vieira, manager of the survey, "the PNS has a number of specific goals and a big general goal, which is to assess the health condition of the Brazilian population, besides measuring the incidence of chronic diseases, one of the most frequent causes of mortality in Brazil".

Along the next five months, the IBGE will send nearly 1,500 survey agents to visit households in more than three thousand municipalities. The first results of the PNS 2019 are scheduled to be released in 2021, detailed by Federation Unit, metropolitan area and municipality of the capitals.

The National Survey of Health will bring new themes in 2019, in addition to those investigated in 2013. One of them is the module of questions on paternity and prenatal exams, directed to men. Another new theme is sexual activity for residents over 18 years of age, with questions on the use of condoms and the age in which they had the first intercourse.

The PNS remains asking whether the residents suffered any type of violence, though the 2019 edition will survey whether the assault was physical, sexual or psychological. Following recommendations from the ILO, the 2019 edition included questions to detect hazardous conditions in the work environment of the interviewees.

The PNS also collects the anthropometric data of one of the residents of the households visited, in order to detect the incidence of obesity and establish the patterns of weight and height of the population.

All the information obtained by the PNS is confidential. The privacy of the interviewees is guaranteed by the law of secrecy of the statistical information (Law no. 5,534) and the data surveyed can only be used for statistical purposes.

The IBGE´s survey agents use a badge and an electronic equipment to collect the data. Residents can confirm the identity of the interviewer through a free telephone call to 0800 721 8181.