ABSTRACT:
This article analyzes the work of female community health workers (agentes comunitárias de saúde – ACS) during the COVID-19 pandemic, focusing on the relationships between gender, invisible labor, and equity in Primary Health Care (PHC). Based on a qualitative and intervention-oriented approach, grounded in activity-centered analysis and contributions from Collective Health and gender studies, the study examines how the pandemic intensified structural inequalities historically embedded in health work. Data were produced through focus groups, interviews, participant observation, and narrative devices, understood as spaces for meaning-making and care. The findings reveal physical and emotional overload, the expansion of care responsibilities in domestic and community spheres, and the persistent institutional invisibility of this predominantly female labor. At the same time, practices of resistance, solidarity, and reinvention of care emerge, sustaining life in everyday territorial work. It is argued that health equity cannot be separated from equity in working conditions, and that recognizing the work of ACS is essential for the sustainability of public health systems. The article contributes to the international debate on gender, care, and public health, reaffirming women’s work as central to socially just care policies.