This paper assumes that the health services' responses to health needs were affected by the regulation of the Brazilian public health system. Its objective is to capture the health-service trends found in scientific publications. Among the 73 publications selected from on-line databases, 66 (90.4%) did not mention the concept of health needs. Those that did had a reflective stance toward the subject. Health needs as defined in those articles were similar for all individuals, not considering them as members of a social class, a circumstance that defines health-needs characteristics. The results of this study are worrisome because health care delivery has been emphasizing sickness and reinforcing classification practices, rather than enabling emancipating praxis.
Needs assessment; Health services; Scientific literature