Free Brazil portal on women’s, kid’s health now five years old

Brazil’s Portal de Boas Práticas em Saúde da Mulher, da Criança e do Adolescente (“Portal of Good Practices in Women’s, Children’s, and Adolescents’ Health”) is celebrating its fifth anniversary. The platform was created in October 2017, by the Fernandes Figueira National Institute for the Health of Women, Children, and Adolescents (IFF), of the country’s research institution Fiocruz.

Since its creation, the portal has amassed a total of 4 million users, with approximately 300 thousand hits across all states of Brazil as well as in Portuguese-speaking countries such as Portugal, Mozambique, and Angola.

The Portal features dedicated sections for women, newborns, children and adolescents, with content organized by experts and available in various formats, such as slides and short videos—all of which including links to the cited references.

The material serves as a guide for continuing education activities and professional training for Brazil’s national public healthcare network SUS, contributing to the review of clinical procedures through good practices.

Spanish version

In collaboration with its Center for International Relations in Health, the institute plans to translate the content first into Spanish, in a bid to make access easier for other nations in Latin America.

Portal Coordinator and IFF Researcher Maria Auxiliadora reiterated that the goal is to preserve the features that brought the portal its national recognition. “The numbers speak for themselves—the testimonials from colleagues who work with child and women care all over the country, testimonials from managers, health agencies, from our own National Health Council. They show the importance of a free tool with a multi-professional approach and knowledge management that experiences an evidence-based exponential growth as we speak.”

Partners

The Boas Práticas portal operates in partnership with a wide range of institutions—among which the Brazilian Society of Pediatrics (SBP), the Brazilian Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics Associations (Febrasgo), the Brazilian Association of Obstetricians and Obstetric Nurses (Abenfo), the Brazilian Society of Pediatric Nurses (Sobep), the Brazilian Society of Family and Community Medicine (SBMFC), and the Brazilian Association of Family and Community Nursing (Abefaco).

These entities, along with professionals from different universities, work in the coordination of the portal’s content planning, development, and assessment. Over the course of its five years of existence, the website has been a unique initiative offering free access, a multi-professional approach, and a focus on the main causes of hospitalization, illness, and death of women and children.