For the first time, the IBGE has been surveying, in partnership with the Ministry of Health, Primary Attention to Child Health within the Continuous National Household Sample Survey (PNAD). That will be the biggest survey on the topic in the country. The new model will be in the field in the second quarter this year.

“With the introduction of this module, the IBGE increases the potential of Continuous PNAD, by means of the improvement of investigation in the health field,” says the IBGE’s Director of Surveys, Cimar Azeredo.

Primary Healthcare is the main form of access to health services by provided by the Unified Health System (SUS) in the country. That is the population’s first contact with health professionals. In SUS, healthcare is characterized mainly by Family Health, formed by health community agents, nurse technicians and family doctors that work in public local health facilities, basic healthcare units, and family clinics.

“That is the biggest household inquiry ever conducted, and it will investigate child care in primary attention in all the 27 Federation Units, with a robust methodology and representative samples of each place,” highlights professor Luiz Felipe Pinto, from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ).

In this module, the IBGE, for the first time among all statistical institutes in the world and in partnership with the Ministry of Health, included questions that evaluate the perception of caregivers of persons up to 12 years of age using those services in SUS, by adopting an international survey instrument validated and published in Brazil by the Ministry of Health.

The questionnaire for the module has 51 questions that cover the evaluation of healthcare, the extension of the affiliation with doctors/healthcare services, available services, rendered services, family guidance, community guidance and doctor-patient relationship.