[Punishment, penalty or providence? Morbidity due to external causes in basic healthcare, Porto Alegre, Brazil].

This research project is based on the work of the External Causes Observer Group for Municipal Health Services under the Partenon and Lomba do Pinheiro District Administration in Porto Alegre, Brazil. It reflects on the actions and roles of Health Services in response to injuries due to External Causes, from the standpoint of strategies promoting health and quality of life. The high rate for these events prompted dissatisfaction among local healthcare parishioners, keenly aware that they constitute a serious Public Health problem.

[Therapeutic practices among elders in Porto Alegre: a qualitative approach].

This study had as its main objective to know, comprehend and analyze the use of therapeutic practices among elders who live in urban areas. With a qualitative approach, this research was carried out in the eastern part of the city of Porto Alegre, State of Rio Grande do Sul. It processed the socio-demographic characterization of 24 elders randomly chosen and the analysis of the information collected from them regarding the use of therapeutic practices.

[The production of knowledge on nursing: challenges in the search of recognition in the interdisciplinary field].

It is about a thematic reflection regarding the current panorama of Nursing and the interdisciplinary issue in Health. It aims at reflecting and discussing about the Nursing practice and its production of scientific knowledge, as well as its influence in the relation with other jobs in the health area. For that, the interdisciplinary relations that exist between Nursing and several other health professions are approached.

[Health education with community groups: a strategy that facilitates health promotion].

This paper highlights a few aspects of health promotion and education that enable reasoning over the pertinence of the work developed with groups in the community. Group work makes it possible breaking the traditional vertical relationship between the health professional and the subject of his/her action. It is also a strategy that facilitates the expression of individual and collective needs, expectations and life circumstances that influence health.

[Sheltering: whose responsibility is it? An experience report].

This paper is about the sheltering of users in a basic health unit in Porto Alegre/RS according to the experience during the Integrated Residency Program in Collective Health at the Public Health School and reflections about specific bibliography. Sheltering is the manner in which the health service is organized to attend to its users and to answer their demands, relying on health education processes aiming to build a different relation than that established in "emergency rooms". It is believed that the nurse is the professional indicated for this task because of its basic education in collectivity and integralized human care.

[Implementation of a school health listener: experience report].

During the year of 2000, in a Junior High School of Porto Alegre, a health listener service was introduced aiming to ease the path of the school community to information and to answer their health needs. The activities were based on three axes: Developing Adults Capabilities, Assistance and Education. Those activities focused on health and tried to approach different subjects according to the school community needs.