All families interviewed in this project were already
families visited by the CHA inside a well-limited territory
previously selected for home visits as part of their routine
work following the Brazilian Ministry of Health
Department Manual for CHA (Brasil 2006a). The very
first home visits by the CHA after the training seminar
was accompanied by one of the authors (DKRV) that
supervised the work on field especially regarding pedigree
construction. All information obtained by the CHA where
those obtained directly from one family member based on
oral information. Very few medical reports were available.
If the response was positive for the presence of cancer, a
validated version of a hereditary cancer questionnaire was
applied following Ashton-Prolla et al. (2009). The variables
evaluated in this phase of the study were presence of
cancer, family history of cancer, total of relatives with
cancer, and type of cancer. Only one person per household
was interviewed.