Revolutionizing the Public Health Workforce-A Policy Brief in Retrospect of the World Congress on Public Health Rome 2020.

The COVID-19 pandemic dramatically illustrates the consequences of inadequate prioritization of the Public Health Workforce (PHW). This Policy Brief introduces a following the plenary session entitled "Revolutionising the Public Health Workforce (PHW) as Agents of Change" as part of the 2020 World Congress on Public Health. In order to revolutionize the PHW, five long-term key approaches are proposed: 1.

The current challenges of the fight for a universal right to health in Brazil.

Brazil has changed a lot since the enactment of the 1988 Federal Constitution. Although substantial advances have occurred in the health sector, old problems persist and new ones arise. The main goal of ensuring the universal right to health has not been achieved.

[Contexts, impasses and challenges for training Public Health workers in Brazil].

An introductory comment is made on the historical background, institutional impasses and curriculum challenges for training Public Health workers in Brazil. Initially, a thesis is proposed, namely that the Brazilian state has not fulfilled its responsibility to ensure quality public services for the population, with access and equity, shaping "the four perversions of Brazilian education." Secondly, it analyzes the public health system, which is theoretically universal, but being underfunded and with acknowledged shortcomings, contributes to the increase in social exclusion.

[Recognizing Flexner: an inquiry into the production of myths in medical education in contemporary Brazil].

In Brazil, there appears to be no doubt concerning the evils caused by Abraham Flexner, his Report, and the Flexnerian Biomedical Model (FBM), conceived and promoted by private foundations and linked to the U.S. health-industrial complex.

[Influence of the self-reported skin color on the prevalence of metabolic syndrome in an urban Brazilian population].

Background: The metabolic syndrome (MS) has a high prevalence in different parts of the world, with variations between different ethnic groups.

Objective: This study aims at exploring the influence of the self-reported skin color on the prevalence of MS Methods: Cross-sectional study, carried out in a population subgroup (n=1,439 adults) in Salvador, Brazil. The self-reported skin color (white, mulatto or black) was used as well as the MS criterion of ATP-III.

[Health equity: a critical analysis of concepts].

Health inequalities have been studied mainly from an epidemiological perspective, with limited attention to conceptual issues. The terms 'equity' and 'equality' have often been used as synonyms, as have their opposites, 'inequity' and 'inequality'. The few attempts to establish their meanings have been either purely descriptive or have failed to add to an understanding of the underlying dynamics in health-disease-related phenomena.

[Health/nursing teaching in a new proposal of academic restructuration].

This study has as objective the presentation of a proposal of curricular restructure, evaluating its influence in the health instruction, focusing the nursing school. It presents, initially, the real panorama of superior education in Brazil. After that, it shows one curricular restructure proposal.

Arterial hypertension in the adult population of Salvador (BA)--Brazil.

Objective: To estimate the prevalence of hypertension (H) and its association with other cardiovascular risk factors in a highly multiracial population.

Methods: A cross-sectional study carried out in Salvador, Brazil, in a population sample of 1439 adults > or = 20 years of age. All participants completed a questionnaire at home and had the following measurements taken: blood pressure, body weight, height, waist circumference (WC), and serum glucose and lipids.

Criteria for central obesity in a Brazilian population: impact on metabolic syndrome.

Objective: To identify and propose the optimal waist circumference cut-off points (WCp) for the diagnosis of central obesity (CO) in a Brazilian population, so as to compare these cut-off points with those recommended by the ATPIII (WC-ATPIII), and to estimate the difference in prevalence rates of metabolic syndrome (MS) using the two criteria.

Methods: Cross-sectional study conducted in a population subgroup of 1439 adults in the city of Salvador, Brazil. ROC curves of waist circumference (WC) were plotted to identify diabetes mellitus (DM) and obesity.

[Mental health and normality: popular conceptions in a northern coastal area of Bahia, Brazil].

This study focuses on signs, meanings, and practices related to mental normality and health in a northern coastal area of Bahia, Brazil. It discusses local conceptions about the non-existence or exclusive existence of mental normality, as well as points of view concerning total mental normality. It identifies the prototypes of normality, like "normal", "almost normal", and "false normal", as signs for distinguishing mentally normal persons.

[Family environment and child's cognitive development: an epidemiological approach].

Objective: To assess the association between quality of stimulation in the family environment and child's cognitive development considering the impact of mother's schooling on the quality of stimulation.

Methods: A cross-sectional study comprising 350 children aged 17-42 months was carried out in central and peripheral areas of Salvador, Northeastern Brazil, in 1999. A socio-economic questionnaire was used, along with the Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment Scale (HOME Inventory), and the Bayley Scale for Infant Development.

[Clustering of modifiable cardiovascular risk factors in adults living in Salvador (BA), Brazil].

Objective: To estimate the frequency of modifiable cardiovascular risk factors, with and without inclusion of arterial hypertension, occurring simultaneously in a racially-mixed population.

Method: A cross-sectional study was carried out with 1,298 adults aged > or = 20 years in the city of Salvador, Brazil, in 2000. Eight modifiable cardiovascular risk factors were assessed, in any combination: total cholesterol > or = 240 mg/dL; high density-lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-c) < 40 mg/dL; triglycerides > or = 200 mg/dL; glycemia > or = 126 mg/dL + well-controlled diabetes; body mass index > or = 25 kg/m2, waist > or = 102 cm for males and > or = 88 cm for females, smoking and alcoholism.

[Health concepts in current science-oriented discourse].

This article analyzes health as a concept in some science-oriented discourses by representative authors of functional sociology, anthropology and epistemology, by focusing their notions of illness and procedures. In the field of sociology, the ideas of normality, labeling, and deviation from labeling patterns stand out. Additionally, we present the main health models in North American health anthropology and evaluate the proposition of a new perspective that intends to overcome the duality between culture and society - the theory of signal, meaning and practice systems.