The paradox of growing technical capacities with low global governance: a review of Voluntary National Reviews' SDG health-related indicators.

Background: This study delves into the States' accountability for health-related Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) indicators from 2016 to 2020. An analysis of Voluntary National Reviews (VNR) is employed as an instrument to scrutinize the alignment of States' indicators with the global indicator framework, shedding light on global health governance within the context of the 2030 Agenda and States' strategic prioritization. A curation of 60 health-related indicators from 195 VNRs, produced during the aforementioned period, is organized into thematic groups.

Access to health and social protection policies by homeless people during the COVID-19 pandemic: a mixed-methods case study on tailored inter-sector care during a health emergency.

Introduction: The article analyzed homeless people's (HP) access to health and social protection policies and tailored inter-sector care, including emergency measures, during the COVID-19 pandemic in Belo Horizonte (BH), capital of Minas Gerais state, Brazil. It intended to provide data on HP and evaluate existing public policies focused on vulnerable populations during this health emergency.

Methods: The study adopted a mixed-methods design with triangulation of quantitative and qualitative data.

Health litigation and cancer survival in patients treated in the public health system in a large Brazilian city, 2014-2019.

Background: Litigation for health care, also known as health judicialization, is frequent in Brazil. It involves recourse to the court system to access health services. The study aimed to evaluate whether cancer patients in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil, increased their overall survival by increasing access to certain drugs or treatments through litigation, controlling for the effect of demographic and disease-related variables.

Potential and challenges of health monitoring in the 2030 Agenda in Brazil.

This article has two integrated objectives: (i) to identify the representation of health in the 2030 Agenda from health-related indicators implemented by international and national institutions; and (ii) to compare the potential of platforms for monitoring Brazilian health commitments in the SDGs. It is argued that there are still important controversies brought about by the greater complexity of the 2030 Agenda, particularly in the operationalization of health-related indicators, whose determinants permeate many other objectives and goals. Finally, even though the picture of the country currently available on national and international platforms is already broad, improvements are required for more effective monitoring and evaluation of Brazilian commitments in the SDGs, with greater disaggregation and stratification of indicators in the population.

The sustainable health Agenda in the Americas: Pre-pandemic gaps and 2030 estimates of the SDGs indicators.

The preliminary assessments of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic have recently rekindled worries about the feasibility of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Notwithstanding the concern voiced by key academic and political actors, the actual evidence on the current gaps and distance from the goals is still very much unknown. This study estimates the global evolution curves for each health-related SDGs indicator in the World Health Organization's SDGs platform.

Brazilian Food Banks: Overview and Perspectives.

In recent decades food banks have become a worldwide response to the contradicting the coexistence of food losses and waste, on the one hand, and hunger and food insecurity on the other. In Brazil, food banks had a rapid expansion, becoming the object of public policy on Food and Nutrition Security and of non-profit private institutions. Our study presents an unprecedented overview of all the food banks currently active in the Brazilian territory, discussing their performances and perspectives.

Social isolation relaxation and the effective reproduction number (Rt) of COVID-19 in twelve Brazilian cities.

We analyzed the social isolation relaxation strategies adopted by the twelve biggest Brazilian cities in 2020, in relation to the number of cases, number of deaths and the effective reproduction number (Rt), which are internationally considered the fundamental epidemiological criteria for allowing wider population mobility in public spaces. The Brazilian central government has not set unique guidelines neither for closure nor for opening, and states and cities have taken the lead in strategy definition. Until July 31 2020, in Belém do Pará, Fortaleza, Manaus, Recife and Rio de Janeiro, where the epidemic peak had already been surpassed, and in Salvador and São Paulo, in which the peak seemed to be already reached, the Rt curve followed a decreasing path after the openings.

Combination of conditional cash transfer program and environmental health interventions reduces child mortality: an ecological study of Brazilian municipalities.

Background: This study aims to assess the interactive effects of Brazilian public interventions, environmental health programs (access to water, sanitation and solid waste collection) and a Conditional Cash Transfer Program (PBF), on the mortality reduction due to diarrhea and malnutrition among children under 5 years old.

Methods: The study design is ecological, with longitudinal analysis in a balanced panel. The period covered is 2006 to 2016, including 3467 municipalities from all regions of the country, which resulted in 38,137 observations.

Combined effects of conditional cash transfer program and environmental health interventions on diarrhea and malnutrition morbidity in children less than five years of age in Brazil, 2006-2016.

Introduction: Governmental measures aiming at social protection, with components of disease control, have potential positive impacts in the nutritional and health outcomes of the beneficiaries. The concomitant presence of these measures with environmental sanitation interventions may increase their positive effect. The context of simultaneous improvement of social protection and environmental sanitation is found in Brazil since 2007 and an assessment of the combined effects of both programs has not been performed so far.

Quantifying convergence on health-related indicators of the 2030 agenda for sustainable development.

The extended scope and complexity of the United Nations 2030 agenda entail important challenges for the operationalization of the health-related sustainable development goal (SDG) indicators. Divergences in concepts, agendas and implementation strategies among institutions have fostered the parallel development of alternative and concurrent indicators. We aim to determine the convergences and divergences between five key institutions: the Global Burden of Disease Study (GBD), the Pan American Health Organization, the Sustainable Development Solutions Network, the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO).

Monitoring the progress of health-related sustainable development goals (SDGs) in Brazilian states using the Global Burden of Disease indicators.

Background: Measuring the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) has been the key to verifying the evolution of health indicators worldwide. We analyse subnational GBD data for Brazil in order to monitor the performance of the Brazilian states in the last 28 years on their progress towards meeting the health-related SDGs.

Methods: As part of the GBD study, we assessed the 41 health-related indicators from the SDGs in Brazil at the subnational level for all the 26 Brazilian states and the Federal District from 1990 to 2017.

Fiscal austerity and the health sector: the cost of adjustments.

Fiscal austerity policies have been used as responses to economic crises and fiscal deficits in both developed and developing countries. While they vary in regard to their content, intensity and implementation, such models recommend reducing public expenses and social investments, retracting the public service and substituting the private sector in lieu of the State to provide certain services tied to social policies. The present article discusses the main effects of the recent economic crisis on public health based on an updated review with consideration for three dimensions: health risks, epidemiological profiles of different populations, and health policies.

Effect of economic recession and impact of health and social protection expenditures on adult mortality: a longitudinal analysis of 5565 Brazilian municipalities.

Background: Economic recession might worsen health in low-income and middle-income countries with precarious job markets and weak social protection systems. Between 2014-16, a major economic crisis occurred in Brazil. We aimed to assess the association between economic recession and adult mortality in Brazil and to ascertain whether health and social welfare programmes in the country had a protective effect against the negative impact of this recession.

Child morbidity and mortality associated with alternative policy responses to the economic crisis in Brazil: A nationwide microsimulation study.

Background: Since 2015, a major economic crisis in Brazil has led to increasing poverty and the implementation of long-term fiscal austerity measures that will substantially reduce expenditure on social welfare programmes as a percentage of the country's GDP over the next 20 years. The Bolsa Família Programme (BFP)-one of the largest conditional cash transfer programmes in the world-and the nationwide primary healthcare strategy (Estratégia Saúde da Família [ESF]) are affected by fiscal austerity, despite being among the policy interventions with the strongest estimated impact on child mortality in the country. We investigated how reduced coverage of the BFP and ESF-compared to an alternative scenario where the level of social protection under these programmes is maintained-may affect the under-five mortality rate (U5MR) and socioeconomic inequalities in child health in the country until 2030, the end date of the Sustainable Development Goals.

The Zero Hunger and Brazil without Extreme Poverty programs: a step forward in Brazilian social protection policy.

Brazilian social protection programs have had consistent effects in reducing poverty and inequality among their respective target-groups: children, adolescents and pregnant and breastfeeding women. In 2011, the Brazil without Extreme Poverty program was launched as a strategy to eradicate extreme poverty by 2014. It makes the promotion of rights the core concept of the official political narrative.

Effect of a conditional cash transfer programme on childhood mortality: a nationwide analysis of Brazilian municipalities.

Background: In the past 15 years, Brazil has undergone notable social and public health changes, including a large reduction in child mortality. The Bolsa Familia Programme (BFP) is a widespread conditional cash transfer programme, launched in 2003, which transfers cash to poor households (maximum income US$70 per person a month) when they comply with conditions related to health and education. Transfers range from $18 to $175 per month, depending on the income and composition of the family.

Effects of a conditional cash transfer programme on child nutrition in Brazil.

Objective: To examine the association between Brazil's Bolsa Familia programme (BFP), which is the world's largest conditional cash transfer programme, and the anthropometric indicators of nutritional status in children.

Methods: Using the opportunity provided by vaccination campaigns, the Brazilian government promotes Health and Nutrition Days to estimate the prevalence of anthropometric deficits in children. Data collected in 2005-2006 for 22 375 impoverished children under 5 years of age were employed to estimate nutritional outcomes among recipients of Bolsa Família.

National Immunization Day: a strategy to monitor health and nutrition indicators.

Problem: To achieve the Millennium Development Goals it is necessary to set up low-cost, real-time monitoring systems which can provide feedback to managers and policy-makers in a timely fashion. The gold-standard approach for monitoring nutritional situations is to conduct household surveys. However, they are costly, time consuming and do not furnish information about smaller disaggregated units.

[Life expectancy at birth and mortality in Brazil, 1999: exploratory analysis of regional differences].

Objective: To analyze the inequalities found using health indicators in the states and regions of Brazil, according to 1999 socioeconomic and demographic indicators.

Methods: An exploratory ecological cross-sectional study was carried out. The units of analysis were Brazilian states (n = 27) and regions (n = 5).

[Intra-urban mortality differentials in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais State, Brazil, 1994: revisiting the debate on demographic and epidemiological transitions].

Demographic and epidemiological transition models have seldom been debated within the Brazilian scientific community. This study aims to critically review the studies based on such transition models, analyzing their contributions and limitations for health research in Brazilian cities. Data from the city of Belo Horizonte were used to illustrate the theoretical issues raised in this paper.