Community Health Agents in the Family Health Strategy: 30 years of resistance and achievements

This article analyzes the trajectory of Community Health Agents (CHAs) in the Family Health Strategy over its 30 years, highlighting their role in consolidating Primary Health Care (PHC) within Brazil's Unified Health System (SUS). It aims to understand how public policies shaped their work, training, and professionalization, and the challenges faced. Using a historical-critical approach, it combines document analysis (laws, ordinances) and literature review, aligned with Comprehensive PHC and social determination of health frameworks. Key findings: (1) CHAs evolved from an occupation to a regulated profession with legislative achievements; (2) their work faces tensions between bureaucratic and community roles, aggravated by the decrease in their presence within the teams, harming comprehensive PHC; and (3) they confront violence, socio-environmental crises, and misinformation. Despite the adversities, CHAs have established themselves as essential workers for the Unified Health System (SUS), which is crucial for territorialization, community orientation, and multidisciplinary work, whose future depends on the direction that will prevail in the conduction of PHC in Brazil.