Identification of health priorities: a technical alternative for support in decision-making

The scope of this study is to propose and discuss the application of an Index of Prioritization in Health (PIHealth). PIHealth is an objective criterion that reveals the magnitude of health problems and determinants in planning situations. PIHealth was used in identifying health priorities in different administrative health regions of the state of Rio Grande do Sul (RS) during the development of the 2009-2011 State Health Plan. The calculation of PIHealth made it possible to express the indicators analyzed within a given range (0 to 1) used to identify regional priorities (insufficient: 0 to 0.4; average: 0.41 to 0.69; and adequate: 0.7 to 1). The application of the index helped to identify the relationship in terms of magnitude of health problems based on an internal reference of the territories analyzed. Use of the index was a technical option in identifying priorities, which provided a simplification in the language used to express health problems and determinants. Its discretionary power and the intuitive simplicity of its interpretation showed that PIHealth is a promising tool, providing objective answers to key questions frequently addressed in health planning contexts.