ABC Heart Fail Cardiomyop 2022; 2(3): 239-241

Lessons Learned from Community Studies of HFpEF – The Digitalis Study

Eduarda Corrêa Maia , Evandro Tinoco Mesquita , Antonio José Lagoeiro Jorge, Luiz Claudio Danzmann

DOI: 10.36660/abchf.20220053

Medical education and, in particular, research in cardiovascular graduate programs have been developed within a segmented view, which reduces and disregards other aspects that constitute the individual, as well as the person beyond the disease. To correct and improve this view, we must understand the transformations that have occurred in medical education and in the health system rather than the privileges that constitute the current health scenario in Brazil. To this end, it is essential to understand the historical context of the changes in health education and medical education that led a group of researchers from the Fluminense Federal University (Universidade Federal Fluminense, UFF) to gain knowledge of heart failure (HF) in the city of Niterói, Brazil, which is the basis of the Digitalis study.^,

Inspired by the importance of primary health care (PHC) in the Alma-Ata Declaration, which was adopted in 1978, projects aimed at improving health quality and access to health were planned and established with methods that included the entire community. From this point onward, we were able to observe the development and implementation of the PHC model in Brazil and, especially, in the city of Niterói, which pioneered the implementation of the Family Health Program (FHP). The FHP, which is based on the family medicine model from Cuba, consists of a team of general practitioners, led by a family doctor, that is responsible for the health of family groups in a given territory.^,

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