Abstract
Introduction:
The COVID-19 pandemic required expanding the health services capacity in Brazilian states and municipalities. This study analyzed the geographic distribution of the health resources provision in the country in the period before the pandemic.
Objective:
This study aimed to describe the availability of health resources in the 133 intermediate geographic regions of Brazil in 2018 according to the human development index (HDI).
Method:
Data on population coverage of the family health strategy, number of outpatient consults and hospitalizations, public investment in health, total number of hospital beds, beds maintained by SUS, intensive care unit (ICU) beds, and ICU beds maintained by SUS were obtained from the Ministry of Health and IBGE. the association of variables with the HDI of the intermediate regions was assessed using Pearson's correlation.
Results:
The indices of health resources had higher average values for the South and Southeast regions, whereas the Central West ranked intermediate values. The HDI correlated positively with health resources. The coverage by family health strategy had an inverse distribution and was higher in the North and Northeast regions.
Conclusions:
Monitoring the health system at the intermediate region level can be a useful strategy to promote access and reduce health inequalities in Brazil. In 2018, the intermediate regions were unevenly prepared to meet their populations’ health needs and reflected the inverse care law. This scenario was the starting point for the response to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
Keywords:
healthcare disparities; health equity; health resources; equity in the resource allocation
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