[Family Health: the challenge of a collective attention].

The Family Health Strategies, incorporated by the Ministry of Health in 1994, has consolidated the national policy of health care that has as its main care focus the family. In this model, this institution constitutes the first object of attention, understood from its environment and interaction. In recent decades, the Brazilian family structure is suffering profound changes that directly affect the practices of health care. This study redeem the family concepts and ideas and their social representations and still prove and present the importance and the necessity of the use of these ample instruments of collective boarding in health area: the APGAR, the genogram and eco-map, using the environment observation and family history--crucial factors to the reality of the nuclear family diagnosis - for further planning of health action strategies. It was concluded that the current structure of the family require training from the health teams, for physical, cultural, biological and social points of the family context for the correct use of the instruments cited, important tools for collective approach in the public health area.