Family Health Strategy: contributions of health teams in the nutritional care of children

The scope of this article is to evaluate the structure and work processes of Family Health Strategy teams related to the nutritional care of children. It involved an assessment survey of 136 health teams in 45 municipalities in the State of Paraiba. The data on structure (availability of anthropometric equipment, supplements and technical documents) and processes (management, intersectoriality and activities of the Brazilian Breastfeeding and Feeding Strategy) were summarized in scores and classified as incipient, intermediate or advanced. Analyses were performed according to contextual characteristics of the municipality (population size and human development) and the health team (whether from the Programa Mais Medicos or conventional teams, and whether accompanied by a nutritionist or not). Nutritional care was classified at the intermediate level, with the availability of technical documents, the use of SISVAN or the e-SUS and the implementation of the Brazilian Breastfeeding and Feeding Strategy being the most deficient items. Large municipalities and expanded health teams with nutritionists had better structure and process conditions, respectively. The fragmented implementation of nutritional care calls for improvements in structure and processes for due fitness for purpose.