ICML 9

9º World Congress on Health Information and Libraries

Salvador, Bahia - Brazil, September, 20 to 23 - 2005

BVS4

4th Regional Coordination Meeting of the VHL

September, 19 to 20 - 2005

Public health researchers: brazilian community profile

Participants:
  • Professora, Diretora, Departamento de Saúde Materno-Infantil Biblioteca-Centro de Informação e Referência da Faculdade de Saúde Pública da USP  - Brasil
  • Professora, Departamento de Biblioteconomia e Documentação da Escola de Comunicações e Artes da USP  - Brasil
  • Professora, Departamento de Saúde Materno Infantil da Faculdade de Saúde Pública da USP  - Brasil

Public health researchers: brazilian community profile

Descriptive study wich aims to profile Brazilian researchers. The main objective of this study is to describe the academic scientific activities of Brazilian researchers of the public health area. Method. Transversal study centered on the user view about the Internet use on the academic activities. The study’s core was constituted of 237 professors from public health post-graduate programmes of higher education institutions in Brazil, in master’s and doctoral levels, registered in the CAPES System (Brazilian Ministry of Education’s foundation for the qualification of higher education professors) in 2001. Data were collected by means of a self-applicable questionnaire that professors answered through the Internet. Results. The return rate of the questionnaires was 63.7%. The majority of the researchers were identified with 41 and 60 years old, and working full time in scientific and academic activities in public universities. They are wit h great experience in post-graduation learning because they work with this students for more than 10 years. The academic community were graduated in biological sciences area, with detach for medical sciences. They can be classified by themes, in agree with the DeCS – Descritores em Ciências da Saúde, in: “Epidemiology and Biostatistics” and “Planning and Administration in Health”. The great majority of the population (94.9%) answered that they use the Internet, the electronic mail (96.9%) and the web (91.1%) were the most used resources. The results show that the professors and researches constitute a consolidated critical mass involved in the professional capacitating of the public health field.