National School of Public Health Sergio Arouca (ENSP/Fiocruz) was designated by the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO/WHO) as a Collaborating Center on Training and Strategic Development for Health Systems with Emphasis on Primary Health Care (PHC). The Foundation becomes one of the first institutions in Latin America to become a collaborating center on the subject, reinforcing its contributions in the field of global health.
This is not the first time that Ensp has become a collaborating center of PAHO/WHO. In 2024, the School's Department of Medicines Policy and Pharmaceutical Assistance (NAF) was redesignated as a collaborating center in the area of Pharmaceutical Policies. With the new designation, Fiocruz now has seven collaborating centers.
"This is a collective achievement, the result of 70 years of work by our institution, by each worker and student who dedicated their time here to the strengthening of public health, collective health and, in the last decades, to the strengthening of SUS [Unified Health System]. The recognition we received today is the result of Ensp' strategic role in the construction of the Brazilian health system and gives us more strength to contribute to health systems at a regional and global level", celebrates the director of Ensp/Fiocruz, Marco Menezes.
For the deputy director of Escola de Governo em Saúde (School of Government in Health) of Ensp/Fiocruz, Eduardo Melo, the designation expresses the recognition of the international relevance of the Foundation's performance on national soil and in other countries in the areas of training, research and technical and academic cooperation, contributing to the constitution of comprehensive public health systems and having PHC as an important pillar. "It is a recognition that considers what we already do at Ensp, providing for the continuity of actions and also the realization of new efforts and initiatives in the face of contemporary challenges," says Melo, responsible for the collaborating center.
According to the deputy director, the appointment, which will last four years, will allow greater international visibility to different lines of action of the School and, indirectly, to the SUS, in addition to boosting the institution to consolidate processes and explore new fronts, modes and spaces of action.
As a collaborating center, Ensp/Fiocruz will, among other duties, develop actions to strengthen the institutional capacities of Public Health Schools to face the challenges of Health Systems; support the design and development of research and strategic studies on and for health systems; and assist in the formulation, implementation and monitoring of actions to strengthen Health Systems with emphasis on Primary Care.
Melo points out that Health Systems, Collective Health Training and Primary Health Care are central nuclei of the collaborating center, with different lines of action derived from it. According
to him, it is essential to start from a more global look at health and consider major challenges of health systems in Latin America (such as segmentation and fragmentation), largely linked to the place of the public and the private, the predominant model of development and the inequalities that mark us, which are opposed, on the other hand, by a set of struggles for rights, recognition and citizenship. In addition, also keeping in mind the care models, the health situation and the productive restructuring in health is fundamental to contextualize the place of PHC.
Primary Health Care, according to the deputy director, is a strategic area and basis of health systems, and can also be seen as a space for the development of knowledge and practices of various orders, as well as a device for change in Health. "At Ensp, PHC is a transversal area that mobilizes, directly and/or indirectly, different actors, groups, programs, departments and centers, with different intensities and emphases. From the PHC, one can also think, for example, of work; training; organization and management of services and networks; pharmaceutical assistance; promotion; surveillance and health emergencies; care; participation; information and digitization, in addition to several other topics. The collaborating center was designated considering this scope", he explains.
Melo says that the designation is the result of an action of Ensp/Fiocruz with important support from PAHO: "From the approach of the Board to the PAHO representation in Brazil, the submission process, known to be demanding, lasted more than a year, going through numerous stages and instances of PAHO and WHO, which required us a great effort in gathering information and building a proposition articulated with the logic of a collaborating center. The result compensated all the effort and, certainly, will encourage several actors of the School to continue with important initiatives and to integrate new projects”.