Priority Setting for Health Resource Allocation in Brazil: A Scoping Review and Ethical Analysis.

• Main Author: Ferri-de-Barros, Fábio
• Other Authors: Howard, Andrew
• Language: en_ca
• Published: 2013
• Subjects: Priority Setting; Resource Allocation; Brazil; Health Services; 0769
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/1807/42832

Brazil is a high middle income country where health inequities persist across two systems of health care financing and delivery. The publicly financed system (SUS) is one of the world’s largest health organizations, which is charged with the constitutional mandate to provide comprehensive health care coverage to over 190 million citizens. National Health Conferences (CNS), the core forum for societal participation in health policy making for the SUS, occur every four years. Yet, managers and councillors struggle to decide on how to allocate resources to meet competing populational health needs and demands, and to comply with the directives of the SUS. The purpose of my research is to describe the three most recent CNS, based on a scoping literature review, to evaluate the ethical account of these decision making processes, and to provide recommendations for improving priority setting for health resource allocation for the SUS according to the ethical analysis.