Reducing Health Inequalities in Brazil’s Universal Health-Care System: Accountability Politics in São Paulo

Coelho, Vera Schattan P.

doi:10.19088/1968-2018.139

Cited by 2 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 5 publications

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“…This has led to substantial growth in the poor classes' ability to access healthcare (Landmann-Szwarcwald and Macinko 2016). According to Vera Coelho (2018), around 65 percent of the Brazilian population access healthcare through SUS. In addition, as João Biehl (2016) argues, several Brazilian middle and low-income patients have brought lawsuits to justice courts in an attempt to get access to medications, in a twin phenomenon that implies the judicialization of healthcare and the pharmaceuticalization of socioeconomic rights.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Following ‘Fosfo’

Vilar¹

2020

MAT

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The chemical substance synthetic phosphoethanolamine (fosfoetanolamina sintética) was developed at the University of São Paulo (USP) in Brazil at the beginning of the 1990s and, until 2014, was tested on and distributed to cancer patients by members of USP’s Chemistry Institute (IQSC) in the city of São Carlos. That year, the production and distribution of ‘Fosfo’, as it became popularly known, was forbidden by IQSC’s director with the support of USP’s rector and the Brazilian National Sanitary Surveillance Agency (ANVISA). Shortly after this first prohibition, however, Fosfo gained popularity and became a national symbol of local scientific innovation and hope for a cancer cure. Likewise, it became an object of regulatory disputes involving multiple sectors of Brazilian society. Despite several further efforts by some scientists and patients to legitimate Fosfo as a pharmaceutical, ANVISA never authorized it. Nevertheless, at the same time as parts of Brazil’s established medical communities were becoming suspicious of Fosfo, its informal production and dissemination were increasing surreptitiously, with many Fosfo users and stakeholders questioning the legitimacy of conventional cancer therapies. In this article, I aim to understand the impact of Fosfo as a biotechnological innovation in terms of the ‘transfiguration’ of the physical and juridical persons involved in this controversy. Through the lens of transfiguration, the engagement and therapeutic-regulatory experiences of Fosfo users and stakeholders appear as deviant journeys that introduce discontinuities into established biomedicine and imply radical transformations at multiple levels, ranging from individuals to larger institutional environments.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Following ‘Fosfo’

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2020

MAT

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Linking Human Development and the Financial Responsibility of Regions: Combined Index Proposals Using Methods from Data Envelopment Analysis

et al. 2020

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Several indicators on human development and capabilities have been introduced in recent decades that measure the absolute level of deprivations and freedoms of people. However, these indicators typically do not consider to what extent regions and countries efficiently spend their limited financial resources on improving human development. This is an important shortcoming because regions typically face different financial constraints in developing social policies and promoting human development. In this article, we advance methods from data envelopment analysis (DEA) to measure absolute capability values and the social efficiency of 129 Brazilian mesoregions. We present a new indicator called the Capability Index Adjusted by Social Efficiency (CIASE) that evaluates the human development performance of regions based on their absolute levels of deprivations as well as their social efficiency in translating limited financial resources into human development. Moreover, we introduce a Deprivation and Financial Responsibility based Prioritization Index (DFRP) that helps to identify priority regions for higher public expenditures in human development. Our results for the case of Brazil show that several poor regions perform relatively better in terms of social efficiency than in terms of absolute human development. Conversely, several rich regions perform relatively worse in terms of social efficiency than in absolute values. Thus, our analysis shows how DEA methods can help to bridge perspectives that are often presented as separated issues but could be strong allies for development: attending to human deprivation and promoting social efficiency.

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Reducing Health Inequalities in Brazil’s Universal Health-Care System: Accountability Politics in São Paulo

Cited by 2 publications

References 5 publications

Following ‘Fosfo’

Following ‘Fosfo’

Linking Human Development and the Financial Responsibility of Regions: Combined Index Proposals Using Methods from Data Envelopment Analysis

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