Washington, D.C., 26 August 2025 (PAHO/WHO) – The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) has launched the Primary Health Care (PHC) Learning Pathway and the virtual course “Introduction to PHC in the 21st Century: Principles and Implementation”, available only in Spanish, as part of its efforts to support countries of the Region in transforming their health systems towards models that are more equitable, resilient, and people-centered.
Through this initiative, PAHO seeks to provide health workers with a common, flexible, and progressive learning pathway. The goal is to strengthen essential competencies to understand PHC as a transformative strategy for health systems. It also aims to integrate approaches centered on people, communities, and social determinants of health. In addition, it fosters interprofessional and intersectoral collaboration at the territorial level and promotes the use of evidence-based practices oriented towards population well-being.
The learning pathway is designed for intersectoral extended teams, interprofessional teams, and managers and decision-makers. It brings together courses, workshops, seminars, and communities of practice available through PAHO’s Virtual Campus for Public Health. The first step in this pathway is the open and free course “Introduction to PHC in the 21st Century: Principles and Implementation”, which provides PAHO certification for those who complete the final evaluation and quality survey of the Campus.
The course has an estimated duration of 16 hours, distributed across five modules. It addresses the conceptual and practical foundations of PHC, including its historical background and principles. It also develops its strategic components and operational mechanisms, as well as tools and experiences from the Region to address current challenges. This proposal responds to the need to recover lost gains in public health, reduce inequalities, and expand access to health. At the same time, it seeks to strengthen governance and the resilience of health systems in the face of global challenges such as noncommunicable diseases, climate change, and rapid urbanization.
The new learning pathway reinforces the vision of Primary Health Care as a comprehensive strategy to achieve universal health in the Americas. The resources are already available through PAHO’s Virtual Campus for Public Health.
Access the learning pathway and the introductory course here.
