(Un)Equitable distribution of health resources and the judicialization of healthcare: 10 years of experience in Brazil

BACKGROUND: Equity has been acknowledged as a required principle for the fulfilment of the universal right to health once it seeks to tackle avoidable and unfair inequalities among individuals. In Brazil, a country marked by iniquities, this principle was adopted in the Brazilian National Health System (SUS) organization. But the phenomenon known as judicialization of healthcare, anchored in the argument of universality of the right, has been consolidated as a health policy parallel to the SUS. The analysis of these lawsuits distribution according to their beneficiaries’ socio-economic profile can contribute to the verification of the judicialization’s potential for reducing inequalities, thus becoming an auxiliary activity in the fulfilment of the universal and egalitarian right to health. This study aimed to assess what socioeconomic factors are associated to municipalities that had larger numbers of beneficiaries from lawsuits in health in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil, from 1999 to 2009. METHODS: It is a descriptive quantitative study of the residence municipalities of beneficiaries registered in database regarding all deferred lawsuits against the state of Minas Gerais from 1999 to 2009. The verification of cities’ socio-economic profile was performed based on information of the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics’ 2010 Demographic Census and on indexes derived from it. The variables studied for each municipality were: number of beneficiaries; resident population; Social Vulnerability Index (IVS); and Municipal Human Development Index (IDHm). Descriptive and statistical analysis were used to verify factors associated with a larger number of beneficiaries in a municipality. RESULTS: Out of 853 municipalities in Minas Gerais, 399 were registered as residence of at least one of the 6.906 beneficiaries of studied lawsuits. The residence non-information index was 11,5%. The minimum number of identified beneficiaries living in a municipality was 1 (one) while the maximum was 1920. The binary logistic regression revealed that high and very high IDHm (OR = 3045; IC = 1773-5228), IVS below 0.323 (OR = 2044; IC = 1099- 3800) and population size above 14.661 inhabitants (OR = 6162; IC = 3733-10,171) are statistically associated to a greater number of beneficiaries of lawsuits in health within a municipality. CONCLUSIONS: The judicialization of health care in Minas Gerais, from 1999 to 2009, didn’t reach the most vulnerable municipalities. On the contrary, it favored a concentration of health resources in municipalities with better socioeconomic profiles. The register of all beneficiaries’ municipalities of residence as well as individual socioeconomic data can contribute to a more conclusive analysis. Nevertheless, in general, the results of this study suggest that the judicial health policy conducted from 1999 to 2009 was not an auxiliary tool for the fulfilment of an equitable right to health in Minas Gerais.