This qualitative study aims to discuss how community health workers (CHW) use the social networks of the population they assist in order to develop actions of health promotion in the Family Health Program. Specifically, it aims to present how CHWs make meaning about their practice with social networks, giving visibility to the functions they perform in their daily work. In order to do so, we conducted and recorded twelve group discussions with CHWs of all the family health units of a city in the state of São Paulo. The transcripts were analyzed via thematic analysis procedures, based on the theoretical and methodological perspective of social constructionism. Our results show the CHWs perform two main functions: articulator and mediator of social networks. From that, we discuss that the development of these functions is fundamental in a broader perspective of health, though it is still little valued when compared to the other activities performed by CHWs in the Family Health Program.
community health workers; social networks; family health program; primary health care; social constructionism