BackgroundIn Brazil, leprosy has been listed among the health priorities since 2006, in a plan known as the “Pact for life” (Pacto pela Vida). It is the sole country on the American continent that has not reached the global goal of disease elimination. Local health systems face many challenges to achieve this global goal. The study aimed to investigate how patients perceive the local health system's performance to eliminate leprosy and whether these perceptions differ in terms of the patients' income.Methodology/Principal FindingsA cross-sectional study was conducted in Londrina, State of Paraná, Brazil. Interviews were performed with the leprosy patients. The local health system was assessed through a structured and adapted tool, considering the domains judged as good quality of health care. The authors used univariate, bivariate and multivariate analyses. One hundred and nineteen patients were recruited for the study, 50.4% (60) of them were male, 54.0% (64) were between 42 and 65 years old and 66.3% (79) had finished elementary school. The results showed that patients used the Primary Health Care service near their place of residence but did not receive the leprosy diagnosis there. Important advances of this health system were verified for the elimination of leprosy, verifying protocols for good care delivery to the leprosy patients, but these services did not develop collective health actions and did not engage the patients' family members and community.Conclusions/SignificanceThe patients' difficulty was observed to have access to the diagnosis and treatment at health services near their homes. Leprosy care is provided at the specialized level, where the patients strongly bond with the teams. The care process is individual, with limited perspectives of integration among the health services for the purpose of case management and social mobilization of the community to the leprosy problem.

ObjectiveIdentify the factors associated with the age-standardised breast cancer mortality rate in the municipalities of State of São Paulo (SSP), Brazil, in the period from 2006 to 2012.DesignEcological study of the breast cancer mortality rate standardised by age, as the dependent variable, having each of the 645 municipalities in the SSP as the unit of analysis.SettingsThe female resident population aged 15 years or older, by age group and municipality, in 2009 (mid-term), obtained from public dataset (Informatics Department of the Unified Health System).ParticipantsWomen 15 years or older who died of breast cancer in the SSP were selected for the calculation of the breast cancer mortality rate, according to the municipality and age group, from 2006 to 2012.Main outcome measuresMortality rates for each municipality calculated by the direct standardisation method, using the age structure of the population of SSP in 2009 as the standard.ResultsIn the final linear regression model, breast cancer mortality, in the municipal level, was directly associated with rates of nulliparity (p<0.0001), mammography (p<0.0001) and private healthcare (p=0.006).ConclusionsThe findings that mammography ratio was associated, in the municipal level, with increased mortality add to the evidence of a probable overestimation of benefits and underestimation of risks associated with this form of screening. The same paradoxical trend of increased mortality with screening was found in recent individual-level studies, indicating the need to expand informed choice for patients, primary prevention actions and individualised screening. Additional studies should be conducted to explore if there is a causality link in this association.

Estigma social e as famílias de doentes com tuberculose: um estudo a partir das análises de agrupamento e de correspondência múltipla Social stigma and the families of patients with tuberculosis: a study based on cluster and multiple correspondence analysis