Ecology of knowledge and territory: integration of ACS and ACE in Primary Health Care

Abstract

Contexts of vulnerabilities and socio-environmental risks that affect social groups, generating illnesses and health problems, demand surveillance and care actions increasingly articulated and integrated into the territory. In the SUS, we have the community health agent and the agent to fight endemic diseases as strategic actors in the territorialization process, which, when integrated into the PHC, can contribute to the identification of social vulnerabilities and environmental risks, as well as in the development of actions of communication and health prevention. In this sense, the study’s objective is to understand the convergences in the work process of the ACS and ACE in the light of the ecology of knowledge, which recognizes in the plural encounter of knowledge the basis for intervention in reality. To this end, we carried out an integrative review based on document analysis, laws and ministerial decrees; and in journals available in the Virtual Health Library through the LILACS, MEDLINE, Scielo and ColecionaSUS databases. Advances were observed in terms of political guidelines for the integration of the work of these professionals, integration experiences in different scenarios, especially in joint action in combating arboviruses; challenges and weaknesses were also pointed out, such as the need for training, precarious links, lack of coordination for integrated work. We conclude that to understand the integration of ACS and ACE, it is necessary to observe the work developed by both in common territories and their convergent practices, which provide opportunities for a meeting of knowledge mediated by health, with Primary Care being the locus of the ecology of knowledge.