Impact of the health public politics to guarantee the drugs access in Brazil: The measure DHS experience

Introduction: Under a health reform, Brazil established a health system based on decentralized universal access. One of the system's major challenges is the access of drugs by population. The action for this achievement has been oriented by two regulatory marks: the Drugs National Policy (1998) and the Pharmaceutical Assistance National Policy (2003). A group of governmental programs has been developed with the objective to guarantee the drugs access. The ones designated to treat high prevalent diseases, as hypertension and diabetes, are subjects of governmental efforts. Goals: Discuss the results of the implementation of these politics in the country. Methodology: Describe and comment the results of the drug component into the Women and Children National Research of Demography and Health (MEASURE DHS Research) 2006. Results: 15.000 women have been interviewed in all country’s region. Among other questions, they have been asked about the real or potential presence of hypertension and diabetes. 11,8% told that they had hypertension an 1,6& diabetes. 93% of the women with hypertension problems and 90% with diabetes obtained drugs through the public health system only. Discussion: This research, though founded on an internationally accepted methodology, has some limitations, such as the fact that it targets only women. Besides, this instrument points to the need of drug consumption and quantify its access to governmental health services. Despite these limitations, the results are important in the context of the evaluation of the government efforts. Conclusion: Brazil is a country with continental dimensions and its geographic, demographic and epidemiology characteristics are extremely diverse. These characteristics illustrate the challenges to the implementation programs regarding the access to drugs. The results encourages the governments as they reveal that actions implemented have been providing access to drugs and that health politics have promoted social inclusion. Within this context, Brazil occupies a privileged position.