PeNSE
With Ministries of Education and Health, IBGE releases data of the National Survey of School Health 2024
March 25, 2026 04h49 PM | Last Updated: March 29, 2026 02h05 AM
IBGE researchers, representatives of ministries of Education and Health and journalists from the local press attended, on Wednesday (25), at Casa Brasil IBGE, in Rio de Janeiro, for the release of the 5th edition of PeNSE (National Survey of School Health), relative to 2024. The survey gathers information related to health conditions and welfare of students aged 13 to 17 years.
PeNSE is the result of a joint effort. The study is developed by the IBGE, in partnership with the ministry of Health and in cooperation with the Ministry of Education (MEC). This cooperation between different public institutions was praised by the IBGE Director of Surveys, Gustavo Junger: “The Ministry of Health was one of the bodies funding this operation, with support from the Ministry of Education, besides municipal and state secretariats, which has made it possible for the IBGE to reach schools and students.”
At the event, survey data related to eating habits, physical activity, drug use, mental health, and safety were highlighted. “The goal of PeNSE is to analyze risk and protection factors for chronic degenerative diseases, which, unfortunately, are the causes of most premature deaths worldwide. They include hypertension, diabetes, cardiovascular problems, pulmonary problems, and cancer,” stated Marco Andreazzi, survey manager. “Most of these diseases have their main developmental factors in the choices and habits that begin in adolescence.”
Manager of PeNSE, Marco Andreazzi - Photo: Rômulo BritoThe remainder is temporarily in Portuguese.
Methodology of the survey
A distinguishing feature of PeNSE is its methodology based on self-applicable electronic questionnaires. The students can answer questions anonymously using a mobile device. “A great number of the surveys conducted in Brazil, not only by the IBGE, but also by other institutes, has an agent, a technician who visits a place and asks the informant directly what the survey is enquiring. In the case of PeNSE, we needed a more direct approach that could, at the same time, prevent our teenage informants from any form of embarrassment. We are dealing with very sensitive data here," said Cristiane Moutinho, IBGE Coordinator of Population and Social Indicators.
Conducted regularly since 2009, with other editions in 2012, 2015, 2019 and, more recently, in 2024, PeNSE has become a reference for planning in the Brazilian State. It is a sample study based on registries obtained from public and private schools located in all the Major Regions in Brazil.
Partnership with the Ministry of Health
The survey is an arm of the Department of Epidemiological Analysis and Surveillance of Non-Communicable Diseases (DAENT), under the responsibility of the Secretariat for Health and Environment Surveillance (SVSA), of the Ministry of Health. Letícia de Oliveira, director of the Department, emphasized that "this 2024 edition represents a very important warning concerning experimentation and the use of electronic smoking devices. The Ministry of Health has been very worried about that.”
Oliveira also pointed out that Anvisa (National Health Surveillance Agency) maintained the ban on the sale of these electronic devices, but the survey data showed that the measure did not prevent teenagers from accessing the product. “It is very important that we formulate, for example, communication campaigns about the risks of these electronic smoking devices. This is a very clear example of where we need to advance using the PeNSE data,” reiterated the director.
Cooperative work
The presentation at Casa Brasil IBGE also engaged civil servants from other public agencies and entities that provide social services based on IBGE indicators. Katiana Teléfora, a specialist in public policy and government management in the state of Rio de Janeiro, attended the event to "learn about national and state data, in their different strategies."
Luciana Phebo, Head of Health and Nutrition at the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), reinforced the practical importance of the study: “UNICEF makes broad use of PeNSE, not only to organize our internal planning, but especially our external work with the Ministry of Health and state and municipal health departments. Not only in health, but also from an intersectoral perspective, since the results of PeNSE address adolescents—adolescent health in a broader sense.”
Now an established project, PeNSE was conceived by Deborah Malta. The professor at the School of Nursing of the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG) conceived the project in 2004, when she worked in the Surveillance of Non-Communicable Diseases and Conditions at the Ministry of Health. “IBGE didn't have any kind of monitoring for this population [adolescents]. So, this worked and became a priority project for IBGE, the Ministry of Health, and the Ministry of Education.”
More than decades later, Malta was touched as she saw the consolidation of the survey. “The fact this is the 5th edition is a strong indicator of the sustainability of this survey. And that is not the project of a specific government, it is a project of the State come true. The partnership between the IBGE and the Ministry of Health was definitive in this sense," the professor added.
