Made at most of women, the Manguinhos Complex counts, according to Census 2010, on more than 20,000 dwellers. Out of those, 36% have problems related to high blood pressure, 44% were admitted to hospital due to clinical reasons as infarct and stroke and 45% are serviced in the public services of the region. Those and other numbers resulted from a survey work performed together with dwellers of the complex, trained by the Project Inquérito e condições de vida e acesso a saúde no Território de Manguinhos (Inquiry and life conditions and access to health in Manguinhos), coordinated by the team of researcher Marilia Sá Carvalho with the support from the Public Health Technological Development Programme (PDTSP/Fiocruz), a fomentation program of the Vice Presidency of Reference Survey and Laboratory (VPPLR/Fiocruz).

In total, the participants made 955 home interviews, including 2,918 families and 883 individual interviews. Everyone learned specific techniques for field survey and, currently, this knowledge is being applied to other initiatives of Fiocruz. So that they could integrate the interviewers team, the applicants had to go through a selection process and, then, 20 were approved and sent to training. Out of those, 10 were registered in a stand-by list, which ended up being used, and the others were hired by the project, as explained by Cintia Ramos, one of those approved for the survey: “The selection process took the entire month of January. Meanwhile, we received information on the project, authorization terms, approach means, epidemiology basics, among others. As tests, we used to interview one another”.

According to Débora Theodoro, another interviewer of the project, the training included since the knowledge about the software used until knowing how to proceed in case of approach by police officers or drug dealers. “Before going to the field, we learned about how to approach to people, the theoretical part, the SUS principles, the use of notebook for including research data, among others. In addition, we were instructed on how to proceed in a community with drug dealership”.

In the interviewers’ opinion, Manguinhos dwellers were very receptive. The greatest challenge for the conclusion was not the difficult to make the interviews, but mapping houses and the violence generated from the battle between police officers and dealers. According to the interviewer Mariano Varjão Alves Junior, the intensity with which operations occurred made the work a challenge. “I couldn’t imagine that this would be such a big challenge. There were difficulties with the drug dealers, the police operations and some suspicion from part of the dwellers. I remember that we stopped working for 15 days because the police operations were very frequent before the Pacifying Police Unit (UPP) implementation”.

The experience is applied in other efforts

Despite the difficulties found, most of the team remained in Fiocruz and was admitted as fellow in other projects of the institution. One of those is Ana Paula Josefa da Silva, who after the end of the survey, has worked in the Health Center of Sergio Arouca National School for Public Health (Ensp/Fiocruz) and in another survey about old people and nutrition. “I have always wanted to work in Fiocruz and I’m very grateful to my coordinators and supervisors. They have made a team that became a family. Nowadays, I’m still doing field survey in Manguinhos, but the focus now is basic sanitation”.

As well as Ana Paula, Débora has also performed other activities in the Foundation and her participation in the project was an incentive for an undergraduate course. “I was very excited since I knew how a survey is made. I used to watch the result of Fiocruz’s surveys in TV articles... Now I know how everything goes. When the survey was over, I started working in Elsa [Adult’s Health Longitudinal Study], where I am nowadays. Being here encouraged me to go to college. I’m in the second term of Social Service”.

In addition to the possibility of continuing working in Fiocruz’s projects, the professionals have also highlighted the increase in the interest in health-related themes. According to Cintia Ramos, knowing Fiocruz from the inside was essential for such attraction to the theme. “I’ve learned more about the diseases, prevention and I was interested on the matter during the course. I’ve started seeing that world as mine. After Teias, I took other courses here in Fiocruz, as that of clinical analysis, and know I’m considering studying biology."

Epidengue 006 is another project of Fiocruz that applied the experience accrued by the Teias interviewers team. Right after the end of the project, Mariano was invited to be fellow in the Coorte Dengue project, where he was responsible for bringing pregnant women to appointments and finding the reason why those mothers failed to appear to the appointments. After that, he started to integrate the Epidengue006 team as supervisor, where he is today. “Nowadays, I’m a area supervisor. I help the surveyors team, once the houses visited for the survey are the same we have been to in the Teias Project”.

About the survey

The survey was part of Network PDTSP-Teias, with the purpose of fomenting surveys in Manguinhos. The differential of this survey network was the collaborative work for building the questions in this inquiry, where most of the projects was contemplated with their interest questions in this instrument. Thus, the survey was prepared by the network researchers together with specialists on the matter, such as Francisco Viacava (ICICT), Cristovam Barcellos (ICICT) and Marilia Sá Carvalho, who took this challenge posed by VPPLR.

The main profit of this network was: the collaborative work between researchers from different units of Fiocruz, training of community dwellers on survey activities, and the creation of new ways of integrating survey and service in the scope of management of health care integrated networks. So, this survey network, a partnership among VPPLR, Teias Escola Manguinhos and SMS, contributes to improve the health integrated network model, aiming at improving the quality of life and health care service of the population.

The results of the survey, counting on the coordination by researchers of the Scientific Computing Programme (PROCC/Fiocruz), the Institute for Health Scientific and Technologic Communication and Information (Icict/Fiocruz) and on the partnership with the Sérgio Arouca National School for Public Health (Ensp/Fiocruz), may be accessed in the booklet Como vai a sua saúde: resultados da pesquisa sobre a situação de saúde dos moradores da região de Manguinhos (How is your health doing: results of the survey on the Manguinhos dwellers health status) published by Ensp/Fiocruz. For more information, send a message to  This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or visit the project website.

Source: Claudio Oliveira/ Fiocruz Portal