The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) is launching a call to collect successful experiences on integrating workers' healthcare at the primary health care in the Region of the Americas. This initiative is promoted by the Workers' Health Area of the Promotion and Social Determinants of Health Unit.

This call falls under the Workers' Health Action Plan 2015-2025, one of the objectives of which is to improve access and expand health care coverage of workers in an integrated manner with national health care systems and especially primary health care.

The aim of this call for proposals is to systematize learning and inspire the development of new initiatives based on those that have been successful in this field. Of all the experiences submitted, a committee of experts will select the best eight, according to the established criteria.

Participation requirements

This call will consider successful experiences on the integration of workers' health in primary health care those initiatives of national, regional or local level, with a minimum duration of one year, that promote at least one of the following aspects:

• The recognition of the worker at the first level of care, with the characterization of their occupational history, their employment and working conditions and their main occupational exposures, gathering the necessary information for the establishment of the relationship between work and health.
• Training in the health of working people for teams at the first level of care, with the identification or screening of diseases or accidents, diagnosis qualification, treatment, registration, referral to other levels of care and social security assistance, as well as health promotion and education associated with work-related issues.
• Conducting health surveillance of workers, monitoring the productive activities and the working population, improving the registration of work-related accidents and diseases, monitoring sentinel events, as well as carrying out actions to detect outbreaks and epidemics related to work in the territory covered by the first level of care.
• The implementation of health promotion activities for workers and health education for workers in the territory covered by the first level of care.
• Activities aimed at promoting the participation of workers, the strengthening of their organizations and the knowledge and exercise of their rights.
• The development of actions that seek to promote, strengthen and expand intersectoral work to address the health of working people.

In addition to these requirements, experiences developed at the first level of care that address other aspects and demonstrate improvements in workers' health, may be considered. Likewise, those experiences whose results are expressed at the first level of care will be valued, excluding experiences associated with care in companies.

Process and selection criteria

Once all the experiences have been compiled, three experts will evaluate the proposals submitted and select the eight best ones. During the selection process, additional interviews may be conducted with the authors. The decisions of the jury members are considered final and not subject to appeal.

The experiences will be evaluated according to the following criteria:

• Clarity of the description of the experience and inclusion in the participation form of the required aspects.
• Adequacy of the experience to the context.
• Relevance of the changes obtained in the integration of workers' health at the first level of care as a result of the experience.
• Sustainability of the experience.
• Possibility of replication.
• Presence of innovative strategies.

Recognition

The eight best successful experiences in integrating workers' health at the first level of care will be invited to make an expanded report and will receive technical and financial support for their development.

The results of the selection process will be announced and so the winning experiences will be published on PAHO's web page. The authors of the winning experiences will be invited to participate in a webinar on the integration of workers' health at the first level of care. The reports presented will serve as input for the elaboration of a guide on the integration of workers' health at the first level of care.

The period to register the experiences will be from June 5 to July 24, 2023.

All the experiences that wish to participate in the call must fill out the form at the following link:

FORM

Do you have a successful experience of integrating workers' health at the first level of care?
Come participate in this call!