Municipal managers' perceptions on health promotion actions: community health workers in focus

Considering the importance of investigating the competence of health promotion in the practice of community health workers and the fact that health managers' view influences on the development of this competence, this article describes health managers' perceptions on health promotion actions taken by community health workers, This is a qualitative research whose study setting was the Regional Management Board of Alto Capivari of the Regional Health Department of Presidente Prudente, Sao Paulo, Brazil. Municipal health secretaries were the research subjects, Data were collected by means of a questionnaire with open questions in July and August 2011, The answers underwent the content analysis technique proposed by Bardin. The results pointed out that health managers confuse the competence health promotion and prevention with monitoring of specific groups and morbidities. it was also observed that managers are not able to differentiate the National Policy of Health Promotion from the National Policy of Primary Care, Towns where municipal managers better understood and differentiated these policies had community health workers more committed to take health promotion actions, including well-structured inter-sector practices, We conclude that municipal health managers play a crucial role for effecting the competence of health promotion by the community health worker and the Family Health team.