The challenge of rendering sanitary surveillance actions operational in health promotion and in the Family Health locus

This article proposes an articulation between the Family Health and the Sanitary Surveillance fields of action. It reflects on how essential concepts and guidelines of the Brazilian public health system (SUS), such as integrality, social control and health promotion, can be integrated into the practice of health professionals. Family Health is both a strategy for taking on a new practice and a field leading to comprehensiveness and health promotion, in addition to being conducive to community participation. Health promotion guides a practice which can potentially transform the field of health. Sanitary Surveillance acknowledges its connection to health promotion and its ideological affinity to the principles contained in the Ottawa Letter. In view of the complex social environment in which professional and user meet, and of the hurdles to more effective health practices, training and enabling human resources becomes a tool for transforming and enhancing public health.