This report describes an innovative  integrated community-based care intervention for people living in deprived neighbourhoods in the city of Belo Horizonte, Brazil. The Programa Maior Cuidado has been running since 2011, providing people with up to 20 hours of support per week from professional family care workers. It has been jointly run by the municipal Departments of Health and Social Assistance.

The programme has been evaluated using qualitative and quantitative methods. The evaluation suggests that the programme is effective and generates a range of positive effects:

• Enhanced health and wellbeing of older people
• Reduced stress and burden of family carers
• Improved efficiency of outpatient and inpatient health care use

The programme also provides valuable employment to the care workers and has a relatively modest cost at US$173 per month per capita.

Since the evaluation, the municipality has extended the programme and it is being piloted in more Brazilian cities, with support from the Federal Ministry of Health.

Full report citation (it is also available in Portuguese and Spanish)

Lloyd-Sherlock P, Giacomin KC, Carvalho PF and Sempe L. (2024) Programa Maior Cuidado: An Integrated Community-Based Intervention on Care for Older People. Inter-American Development Bank, Social Protection and Health Division. VI Series.