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Biomedical subjects

Celia Almeida

Publications and source records attributed to Celia Almeida.

11 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2006

[Implementation of indigenous people's health policy in Angra dos Reis, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: obstacles and prospects].

This article discusses the Brazilian National Policy for Indigenous People's Health, formulated in the 1990s as part of the national Health Reform Movement and based on the creation (in 1999) of the Indigenous Healthcare Sub-System. Coordinated at the central government level under the administration of the National Health Foundation/Ministry of Health, the implementation of this sub-system required adaptations in the organization of health services systems at the local level, with the creation of Special Indigenous Health Districts. This configuration showed the need for dialogue and negotiation among the various institutions involved with indigenous affairs, from the perspective of overcoming various conflicts and operational difficulties. The current analysis identifies the difficulties in the implementation of a differentiated indigenous health policy under federal responsibility and within the decentralized Brazilian Unified Health System (SUS), since the absence of specific mechanisms and instruments regulating the operationalization of these services at the local level and the lack of more effective supervision and on-going evaluation of this policy mean that differentiated care for the indigenous population is subject to both the vices and virtues of local policy.

Brazil↗
PubMed2006

Use of research results in policy decision-making, formulation, and implementation: a review of the literature.

This paper offers a critical review of the theoretical literature on the relationship between the production of scientific knowledge and its use in policy formulation and implementation. Extensive academic output, using a diversity of approaches and analytical frameworks, has sought to systematize knowledge transfer categories and strategies with a view to improving the application of scientific knowledge. A considerable part of this thinking addresses the problem from a more traditional perspective, which (explicitly or implicitly) regards research results as an "accumulable product", depicts the decision-making process simplistically and linearly, and thus restricts strategies to the suiting of research endeavors to needs. Newer approaches place greater importance on the complexity of policymaking and the knowledge production process, which are integrated into and explained in particular political and institutional settings. Although the application of knowledge transfer ideas to health policy and systems research does generate some interesting contributions, a long process of theoretical thinking lies ahead.

Biomedical Research↗
PubMed2006

Cross-sector learning among researchers and policy-makers: the search for new strategies to enable use of research results.

This paper assesses the preliminary results of a research funding strategy that alters the structure and process of research by requiring interaction between researchers and policy-makers. The five research teams focused on different aspects of expanding social protection in health in Latin America and the Caribbean. Preliminary results revealed negotiation of the research questions at the start of the process, influencing not only the project design, but the decision-makers' ways of thinking about the problem as well. As the projects advanced, turnover among government officials on four of the teams impaired the process. However, for the one team that escaped re-composition, the interaction has led to use of data in decision-making, as well as a clear recognition by both parties that different kinds of evidence were at play. The process highlighted the importance of stimulating systems of learning in which multiple kinds of knowledge interact. This interaction may be a more realistic expectation of such initiatives than the original goal of "transferring" research knowledge to policy and practice.

Administrative Personnel↗
PubMed2003

[Equity and health sector reform in Latin America: a necessary debate].

Reform and equity are terms that have frequented political discourse, technical documents, and conceptual discussions in recent decades in different proposals with different ideological references. To understand the importance and centrality of these themes in the contemporary debate in Latin America implies a more in-depth reflection on health policy in the sphere of social policies and to define which reforms were are discussing and the place equity occupies in this discussion. The first part of this essay discusses the concepts of reform and equity, followed by a review of health policy as a social policy. The article ends by discussing the central elements on the health systems reform agenda in Latin America. The conclusion is that the situation is dramatic and that recent reforms have exacerbated inequalities and created new problems by replacing the values of solidarity and equal opportunity with those of "radical utilitarian individualism"; meanwhile, the principle of "health needs" has been replaced by that of "risk", "monetarized" and defined according to the individual's social and economic position. It becomes necessary to resume the discussion of social and health policies as the matrix of principles justifying the order ascribed to any other policies.

Health Care Reform↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Organization and delivery of primary health care services in Petrópolis, Brazil.

The objective of the study was to adapt and apply an instrument to measure the organizational features of the primary care system in the municipality of Petrópolis. The study compared the performance of the new Family Health Program (Programa Saúde da Família or PSF) with traditional primary care facilities using data from facility surveys and key informant interviews. The main results include: (a) the methodology was capable of distinguishing between the two types of primary care services in the municipality; (b) the PSF clinics scored higher on most dimensions of primary care, although in some areas the traditional health units had equivalent scores; and (c) data obtained from interviewing key informants was generally compatible with that obtained by conducting facility surveys. The results suggests that in spite of making important advances in primary care, the municipality of Petrópolis continues to face several challenges including the need to improve access, enforce the gatekeeper role of primary care, and improve the coordination and community orientation of both types of primary care services. The methodology could be used to set objectives and monitor progress towards improving the organization and delivery of primary care in Petrópolis and elsewhere.

Brazil↗
PubMedDate not supplied

[Health systems reform and equity in Latin America and the Caribbean: lessons from the 1980s and 1990s].

This essay proposes a review of the issues of equity and reform in Latin America and the Caribbean in the context of changes in recent decades, emphasizing the discussion of health systems reform. The economic, political, and social context prevailing in the critical 1970s extensively favored budget cuts for public expenditures, cost containment, changes in the health sector power structure, and health services reorganization from an 'economicist', pragmatic, and restrictive perspective. An inventory of the Latin American economic and social situation is markedly negative, and efforts to recover from the damage done in the 1980s were largely unsuccessful in the 1990s. The reforms implemented in some paradigmatic countries (Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Argentina, and Brazil), in light of their specific characteristics, demonstrate the dissemination of a common agenda, adapted to the various national conditions. Some positive results of these processes were diluted in new problems caused by the reforms themselves, especially in countries with more radical adherence to the new reformist model; meanwhile, in the country where the public, universal system based on solidarity was most consolidated, the management changes have obtained the best results. However, overcoming inequalities is still a distant goal.

Caribbean Region↗
PubMedDate not supplied

[Theory and practice of the health systems reforms: the cases of Brazil and Mexico].

This study focuses on the role of public health experts in the contemporary health sector reform process. The authors discuss the issue based on the case of Brazil and Mexico, where a group of public health specialists have oriented their participation to influence the conflict concerning health policy reform in the respective countries. One approach has been to develop a new cognitive framework for technical health sector reform projects viewed as policy proposals with technical content. The purpose is to demonstrate how these specialists have managed to influence the national debate over health sector reform when the technical and scientific discussion leaves the academic sphere and reaches the social and political realm. The authors contend that this occurs because such technical and scientific knowledge has been postulated (independently of its intrinsic value) as a political and ideological alternative platform for sustaining a health sector reform proposal which, once transformed into a policy project, has served to aggregate certain political and social forces.

Attitude of Health Personnel↗