Articles

Dementia Care in Brazil: Diagnosis, Family Support and the Development of Community Services
Dementia is becoming a much larger care-system challenge as Brazil ages, but diagnosis is only the beginning of the pathway. This article examines the country’s National Dementia Policy, primary and specialist care through SUS, family caregiving, community support, treatment, rights, workforce capability and regional inequality, and considers what Brazil must develop if earlier identification is to lead to sustained, person-centered support rather than leaving families to manage progressive dependency largely alone. Read more...
Day Centres, Community Services and New Models of Support for Older People in Brazil
Brazil’s long-term care debate is increasingly moving beyond the choice between family care and residential institutions. Day centres, community services, social-assistance programs and newer care models can support older people to remain connected, reduce caregiver strain and delay unnecessary institutionalization. This article examines how Centro-Dia services, SUAS community provision, health interfaces and the National Care Policy could contribute to a stronger local care continuum. Read more...
Long-Term Care Institutions in Brazil: Residential Care, ILPIs, Regulation and Quality
Brazil’s Instituições de Longa Permanência para Idosos occupy an important but often misunderstood position between housing, personal support, health care, social assistance and family responsibility. This article examines how ILPIs operate, how regulation and local oversight shape quality, why resident dependency and workforce capability matter, and how Brazil can strengthen residential long-term care while expanding community-based alternatives under its emerging national care policy. Read more...
Building the Future Care Workforce in Brazil: Recruitment, Skills, Pay and Decent Work
Brazil’s future care workforce will have to expand at the same time as the country raises the quality and status of care employment. This article examines how recruitment, vocational education, formalization, pay, career pathways, workforce distribution and decent-work protections need to develop together if Brazil is to build sufficient long-term care capacity without reproducing the low-paid, informal and heavily gendered labor patterns on which much care still depends. Read more...
Brazil’s Long-Term Care Workforce: Care Workers, Domestic Workers and the Professionalization Challenge
Brazil’s future long-term care capacity will depend not only on how many workers enter the sector, but on how care work is defined, protected, trained and organized. This article examines the central role of domestic workers and paid caregivers, the blurred boundaries between household support and personal care, the National Care Policy’s decent-work agenda, and the operational challenge of building a larger, more skilled workforce without reproducing low pay, informality, racial inequality or unsafe role substitution. Read more...
Supporting Unpaid Carers in Brazil: Recognition, Respite, Training and Social Protection
Brazil’s National Care Policy has moved unpaid carers from the margins of family life into the formal scope of public policy. This article examines what meaningful support now requires: recognition of caregiving as work, access to respite and replacement care, practical training, stronger links with SUS and SUAS, employment protection, social protection and better local evidence. It also considers how Brazil can reduce caregiver overload without weakening family relationships or treating unpaid care as an unlimited substitute for formal services. Read more...
Women and the Care Economy in Brazil: Gender, Unpaid Care and the Redistribution of Responsibility
Brazil’s care economy depends heavily on women’s unpaid and low-paid labor, especially among Black and lower-income women. This article examines how domestic work, family caregiving, paid care employment and labor-market inequality intersect with the National Care Policy, and why redistributing care across households, employers, communities and the state is becoming essential to women’s economic autonomy, workforce participation and the sustainability of long-term care. Read more...
Family Caregiving in Brazil: The Hidden Foundation of Long-Term Care
Family caregiving remains the foundation on which much of Brazil’s long-term support depends, providing personal care, supervision, coordination and practical help that formal services often do not replace. This article examines how unpaid family care interacts with SUS, SUAS and the National Care Policy, why the sustainability of home-based support depends on caregiver capacity, and how demographic, economic and service changes are making informal care a central system issue rather than a private household matter. Read more...
Home-Based Care in Brazil: Supporting Aging in Place and Reducing Institutional Dependence
Brazil is expanding several forms of home-based care, but they serve different purposes and are not yet one unified long-term care entitlement. This article examines Melhor em Casa, Padi Brasil, SUAS home-based support, the emerging Cuidar em Casa model and the continuing role of families, showing what a stronger aging-in-place system would require in workforce, funding, housing, technology, caregiver support and local governance. Read more...
Primary Health Care and the Family Health Strategy: Supporting Older Brazilians in Their Communities
Brazil’s Family Health Strategy gives primary care an unusually strong territorial role in supporting older people before needs escalate into hospital or long-term care dependency. This article examines how Family Health teams, community health workers, eMulti professionals, multidimensional assessment, home visits, prevention and current financing reforms are shaping care for an aging population, while identifying the workforce, data and coordination requirements needed to turn local knowledge into sustained independence. Read more...
Integrating Health and Social Care in Brazil: Bridging SUS, SUAS and Long-Term Support
Brazil already has extensive health and social-protection infrastructure, but older people with complex needs often require both systems to work together rather than in sequence. This article examines the operational interface between SUS and SUAS, the role of municipalities, primary care, CRAS, CREAS, home-based support and emerging integrated-care pilots, and what stronger referral, information, workforce and governance arrangements could mean for a more coherent long-term care pathway. Read more...
SUAS and Social Care for Older People in Brazil: Assistance, Protection and Community Support
Brazil’s Sistema Único de Assistência Social provides an essential social-protection infrastructure for older people whose care needs intersect with poverty, isolation, dependency, family strain or violations of rights. This article examines the roles of CRAS, CREAS, PAIF, PAEFI, community services, home-based social protection, Centro-Dia provision and residential support, showing how SUAS complements healthcare while helping older people remain connected, protected and supported within their communities. Read more...