Introduction

The Annual World Health Day, 7 April 2006 has been established to honor health workers, highlighting the contribution of human resources for health, the most valuable resource of this sector. Many special celebrations will take place all over the Americas, the Work Management and Health Education Secretariat of the Ministry of Health of Brazil, together with the Pan American Health Organization would like to offer this Electronic Library that compiles documentation on Health Security and working conditions of the health workers.

Despite the universal nature, the World Health Day 2006 will be especially important for the Region of the Americas, in view that this year's World Health Day will also launch a Decade for the Promotion of Human Resources in Health. In this opportunity, they are calling on governments and social actors to make human resources in health a priority of their development strategies, committing the necessary political will, actions and resources to overcome the challenges the sector faces and thus provide health workers with the necessary tools and working conditions to do their jobs effectively, such as: professional training, adequate compensation, good working conditions and support.

This Electronic Library compiles 500 full-text publications in Portuguese, Spanish and English, 20 full-text documents on legislation and 100 training materials (pamphlets, posters, presentations). Sixty Internet resources, such as web pages and electronic magazines are used as references.

Search is located in the upper part of this screen, thus enabling visitors to locate publications, legislation and training material by any word of the title, author or theme. Publications can be accessed without using the Internet. You only need the Adobe-Acrobat software installed in your computer. Press here to install.

Six indices appear on the left side of the screen to locate the publications in alphabetical order by:

Title

Personal Authors

Corporative Author

Subject

Legislation

Educational Material

For the Internet section, an Internet connection is required to access web pages and electronic magazines, presented in alphabetical order.

The Pan American Information Network on Environmental Health, known by the acronym REPIDISCA, is Now in expantion to cover the new topics related to sustainable development and environmental health; therefore it will be renamed again; but its acronym, will not. REPIDISCA, from its creation in 1981, has applied frontier technologies, thus, the Virtual Library in “Sustainable Development and Environmental Health” - BVSDE currently is the principal product that accompanies the boom of the Internet. BVSDE is the new acronym for the Virtual Library for the Sustainable Development and Environmental Health, a mix of Spanish and English languages. REPIDISCA has more than 370 Cooperating Centers in 24 countries of the Region, that work jointly to reach its main objective: the timely access to the information that Latin America and Caribbean countries require and produce. Through the BVSDE, REPIDISCA information services are available 24 hours a day,365 days a year, from anywhere.