One of the strategies on which local health services rely in order to follow up activities is home inquiry, a source of important information concerning the access to services and knowledge regarding the population's health conditions. This work aims at analyzing the use of inquiries as an instrument for diagnosis and follow-up of the vaccinal situation of children under one year old in a micro area of the City of Ribeirão Preto-SP, Brazil. In the first semester of 1998, 106 families were interviewed by using a family record. Nine children under 01 year old (4.35% of the population) were identified, of whom 4 (44.44%) presented vaccination delay. It was later identified that 8 children presented an updated record and that information was not obtained in only one case. It can be verified that home inquiry is a viable strategy to follow up and evaluate the care delivered, which, in the case of this study, concerns vaccination actions, so as to efficiently and effectively determine the directions to be taken in health care in local level.
primary health care; vaccination; public health
