Saúde de crianças e adolescentes em comunidades vulneráveis no norte do Brasil

Abstract

The inequalities observed in health services consistently point to the disadvantage among racial groups and higher morbidity and mortality due to chronic diseases in children and adolescents in low- and middle-income countries. Primary health care of high quality represents a way to respond to these and other growing health needs. This study aimed to discuss children's health in quilombola communities in the north of Brazil through a two-way evaluation: the quality of Primary Health Care (PHC) attributes provided by Family Health Strategy (FHT) teams and factors associated with disorders of blood pressure in children and adolescents living in five quilombola communities in the state of Tocantins / Brazil. The first one was carried out with 68 caregivers of the children resident and registered in the health teams of the quilombos family. For data collection, the PCATool-Brazil instrument (child version) was used to collect information on the quality of primary health care experiences offered to children. The highest scores were affiliation (10), use (8.45) and information system (8,24). The worst scores were accessibility (6.01), available services (6.57) and essential score (4.42). The second group consisted of 67 children aged 10 to 17, where we compared the variables studied between the normotensive and non-normotensive groups. High blood pressure was defined as mean systolic or diastolic blood pressure ≥ 90th percentile for age, height, sex. The proportion of children and adolescents with blood pressure disorders was 19.4% (prehypertension 14.9% and hypertension 4.5%). In the Poisson regression analysis (p <0.05), among children and adolescents, the percentage of high fat was associated with elevated blood pressure (p <0.021). Similar associations were observed for non-HDL-c (p <0.001) and low calcium intake (p> 0.015). This study highlights the need for improvement in primary health care offered to quilombola children and adolescents through high quality prevention, promotion and treatment in the primary care of the most vulnerable and marginalized population.