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The use of primary attention services to health by the childhood population in a brazilian northeast

This paper has as its general goal to avaliate the use of some Basic Attention's service by the childhood population in the State of Maranhão (Brazil), when compand to the evolution of the indicators in the last ten years. It was performed a descriptive study in the period from july of 2007 to January of 2008 and used a sample which represented the state of Maranhão among 1.711 children. It was obtained according to systematical aleatory sampling for conglomerates. It was used the Research "Health, Nutrition and Infantile Mortality in Maranhão" developed in 1996, like data comparative referential the present study. From the total of studied children 38% got their preventive consultation in their 1st year of life from which 92,1% used the Health Unique System (SUS). It was observed that all the variables had their positive increase as to relation to the study of the past decade, practically. The pericultural consultations in the 1st year of life and before the 1st month of life in an average of 10% however the access to the public service used to 17% approximately. Throng that analysis of the behavior and that one of 10 years before, it was observed the improvement of some indicators of the child's health attention in the state of Maranhão, possibly related to the processes of implantation and betterment of the Family's Health Strategy, so determinants of the process of consolidation of Brazil's Public Health System - evolution which can seem slow to the eyes of the researches, however with a necessary dimention in order to configurate itself in the major politics of social inclusion of the Country.

child health; primary health care; unified health system


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