Objectives To evaluate the impact of Brazil's recently implemented Family Health Program (FHP), the largest primary health care programme in the world, on heart and cerebrovascular disease mortality across Brazil from 2000 to 2009.Design Ecological longitudinal design, evaluating the impact of FHP using negative binomial regression models for panel data with fixed effects specifications.Setting Nationwide analysis of data from Brazilian municipalities covering the period from 2000 to 2009.Data sources 1622 Brazilian municipalities with vital statistics of adequate quality. Main outcome measuresThe annual FHP coverage and the average FHP coverage in previous years were used as main independent variables and classified as none (0%), incipient (<30%), intermediate (30-69%), or consolidated (≥70%). Age standardised mortality rates from causes in the group of cerebrovascular (ICD-10 codes I60-69), ischaemic (ICD-10 I20-25), and other forms of heart diseases (ICD-10 I30-52), which were included in the national list of ambulatory care-sensitive conditions, were calculated for each municipality for each year. They accounted for 40% of all deaths from these groups during the study period.Results FHP coverage was negatively associated with mortality rates from cerebrovascular and heart diseases (ambulatory care-sensitive conditions) in both unadjusted and adjusted models for demographic, social, and economic confounders. The FHP had no effect on the mortality rate for accidents, used as a control. The rate ratio for the effect of consolidated annual FHP coverage on cerebrovascular disease mortality and on heart disease mortality was 0.82 (95% confidence interval 0.79 to 0.86) and 0.79 (0.75 to 0.80) respectively, reaching the value of 0.69 (0.66 to 0.73) and 0.64 (0.59 to 0.68) when the coverage was consolidated during all the previous eight years. Moreover, FHP coverage increased the number of health education activities, domiciliary visits, and medical consultations and reduced hospitalisation rates for cerebrovascular and heart disease. Several complementary analyses showed quantitatively similar results. ConclusionsComprehensive and community based primary health care programmes, such as the FHP in Brazil, acting through cardiovascular disease prevention, care, and follow-up can contribute to decreased cardiovascular disease morbidity and mortality in a developing country such as Brazil.

Resumo: O estudo teve como objetivo analisar a associação entre o acesso aos serviços de atenção primária à saúde dos adolescentes e adultos jovens e a cobertura da Estratégia Saúde da Família (ESF). Trata-se de estudo transversal, a partir de um inquérito domiciliar realizado com 812 indivíduos de 15 a 24 anos de idade, em Camaçari, Bahia, Brasil, por meio de uma amostragem por conglomerados. Variáveis demográficas, socioeconômicas, de saúde e dos serviços de saúde foram utilizadas para descrição da população, segundo a área de cobertura de atenção primária à saúde. A associação entre área de cobertura da atenção primária à saúde e acesso aos serviços desta, as barreiras de acesso e a participação em atividades educativas foram estimadas por meio da razão de prevalência (RP), com uso do modelo de regressão logística multinível no software R. O acesso aos serviços de atenção primária à saúde foi referido por 89,5% dos indivíduos, não havendo diferenças estatisticamente significantes entre esse tipo de acesso e a área de cobertura da ESF. Entretanto, entre indivíduos residentes em áreas cobertas pela ESF, verificou-se maior acesso às ações de prevenção de agravos e promoção da saúde (RP = 3,0; IC95%: 1,68-5,34), mas também menor probabilidade de o atendimento ocorrer no mesmo dia de marcação da consulta (RP = 0,60; IC95%: 0,48-0,74) e menor disponibilidade de transporte coletivo (RP = 0,59; IC95%: 0,39-0,90). Os dados deste estudo apontaram elevada prevalência de acesso aos serviços de atenção primátria à saúde entre os adolescentes e adultos jovens. Ainda que não se tenham observado diferenças do acesso entre as áreas com cobertura da ESF, a maior participação desses indivíduos em atividades de prevenção e promoção da saúde reforçam a importância dessa estratégia no âmbito do Sistema Único de Saúde (SUS).

BackgroundThe strategic importance of monitoring social determinants of health (SDH) and health equity and inequity has been a central focus in global discussions around the 2011 Rio Political Declaration on SDH and the Millennium Development Goals. This study is part of the World Health Organization (WHO) equity-oriented analysis of linkages between health and other sectors (EQuAL) project, which aims to define a framework for monitoring SDH and health equity.ObjectivesThis review provides a global summary and analysis of the domains and indicators that have been used in recent studies covering the SDH. These studies are considered here within the context of indicators proposed by the WHO EQuAL project. The objectives are as follows: to describe the range of international and national studies and the types of indicators most frequently used; report how they are used in causal explanation of the SDH; and identify key priorities and challenges reported in current research for national monitoring of the SDH.DesignWe conducted a scoping review of published SDH studies in the PubMed® database to obtain evidence of socio-economic indicators. We evaluated, selected, and extracted data from national scale studies published from 2004 to 2014. The research included papers published in English, Italian, French, Portuguese, and Spanish.ResultsThe final sample consisted of 96 articles. SDH monitoring is well reported in the scientific literature independent of the economic level of the country and magnitude of deprivation in population groups. The research methods were mostly quantitative and many papers used multilevel and multivariable statistical analyses and indexes to measure health inequalities and SDH. In addition to the usual economic indicators, a high number of socio-economic indicators were used. The indicators covered a broad range of social dimensions, which were given consideration within and across different social groups. Many indicators included in the WHO EQuAL framework were not common in the studies in this review due to their intersectoral and interdisciplinary nature.ConclusionsOur review illustrates that the attention to SDH monitoring has grown in terms of its importance and complexity within the scientific health literature. We identified a need to make indicators more wide-ranging in order to include a broader range of social conditions. The WHO EQuAL framework can provide intersectoral and interdisciplinary means of building a more comprehensive standardised approach to monitoring the SDH and improving equity in health.