| Abstrakt: |
According to IBGE, 21% of the Brazilian population are within the 10-19 years age range, 50.4% being male and 49.6% female. Although they make up a significant swath of the population, many of these individuals do not have access to adequate information and services concerning sexual and reproductive health, essential to guarantee safe and responsible sexual practices. We then aimed to assess, under the perspective of health professionals, the insertion of these young people in the municipal public policies, chiefly concerning sexual and reproductive health. Semi-structured interviews were used to approach key informants from seven of the nine sanitary districts of the municipality. Besides the difficulties that are inherent to the health system (scarce resources, deficient infrastructure, paucity of professional continuing education programs), adolescent care is hampered by educational and cultural issues. Actions and strategies targeting adolescent care in the Basic Health Units are on their early days, being mainly a stopgap that prioritizes curative measures over educational ones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
