title: [The implementation of undergraduate courses in public health: the viewpoint of the coordinators].
abstract: Undergraduate courses in Public Health are now a reality in Brazil. The main goal of this article is to present the viewpoints of the coordinators of these courses on the process of their creation and implementation, emphasizing their contextual and procedural elements. Ten actors working in eight different institutions were interviewed and the interviews were submitted to content analysis as proposed by Bardin. The results showed that the creation of such courses resulted from a long process of discussion on the field of Public Health, and was hastened by some important decisions in Brazilian education, including the Program to Support Restructuring and Expansion Plans of Federal Universities. The testimonies of the coordinators enabled the researchers to understand the context prior to the proposal and the way it was developed by each university, making it possible to establish not only the aspects common to each institution, but also their specificities. Currently, these courses have the purpose of training professionals focused on the different areas of health services, especially those related to the Unified Health System (SUS), representing an irreversible advance in the field of Public Health.
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Medicina Preventiva e Social, Faculdade de Medicina, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais. Av. Alfredo Balena 190/7, Santa Efigenia. 30130-100 Belo Horizonte MG. soraya@nescon.medicina.ufmg.br
authors.forename: Soraya Almeida
authors.initials: SA
authors.lastname: Belisário
authors.forename: Isabela Cardoso de Matos
authors.initials: IC
authors.lastname: Pinto
authors.forename: Marcelo Eduardo Pfeiffer
authors.initials: ME
authors.lastname: Castellanos
authors.forename: Tania Celeste Matos
authors.initials: TC
authors.lastname: Nunes
authors.forename: Terezinha de Lisieux Quesado
authors.initials: Tde L
authors.lastname: Fagundes
authors.forename: Célia Regina Rodrigues
authors.initials: CR
authors.lastname: Gil
authors.forename: Raphael Augusto Teixeira
authors.initials: RA
authors.lastname: de Aguiar
authors.forename: Solange Veloso
authors.initials: SV
authors.lastname: Viana
authors.forename: Guilherme Torres
authors.initials: GT
authors.lastname: Corrêa
mesh_terms: D001938:Brazil; D004517:Education, Professional / Q000458:organization & administration*; D011634:Public Health / Q000193:education*