In this article, we analyze the structure of health surveillance in the country between 1976 - when the National Secretariat of Health Surveillance was created - and 1999 - the year of the implementation of an independently administered, financially autonomous regulatory agency linked to the Ministry of Health, the National Health Surveillance Agency. The study focuses mainly on how the field of health surveillance fits into the health policies, and on the changes in its conception passing from the connotation of "inspection" to "surveillance". The recognition of the importance of health surveillance in the broader field of Community Health as well as the specificity of its professionals are central points of reflection. Recent studies on this topic are beginning to reveal a complex field of knowledge and practices, almost invisible in health policies and rarely addressed amidst the new topics of Community Health, thus opening new perspectives for this area.
History of health surveillance; Community health; Health workers