National Information and Population Survey Systems: selected contributions from the Ministry of Health and the IBGE for analysis of Brazilian state capitals over the past 30 years

By the late 1980s, increased exchange between WHO regional offices and Health Ministers around the world raised the need for compatible methodologies and data collection tools to measure health status through population surveys, which could then complement the health records of the official statistics agencies in each country, and enabling comparison of National Information Systems. This article analyzes the main contributions of the Ministry of Health and the IBGE for the analysis of the health status of the Brazilian population. As a criterion for inclusion, only data sources in the public domain published periodically for at least the past 20 years, and those generating data at the municipal level were used. From this set, the capitals of Brazil were analyzed. The data shows that after the Unified Healthcare System (SUS) was created, the network of non-hospitalization healthcare experienced a rapid transformation. By 2009 85.5% of such units were under the municipal umbrella, compared to 40.7% when SUS was created. In Brazil, the RIPSA initiative has fulfilled the integrative role for the formation of a National Health Information System, recommended by Article 47 of Law 8.080 / 1990 that instituted the SUS, assigning major responsibility to1 the IBGE.