A Random Image

Health Report Brazil

The Federative Republic of Brazil, commonly known as Brazil, is a South American powerhouse. This large country borders all South American countries with the exception of Chile and Ecuador. Constitutionally, there is a president and three supporting government branches: executive, legislative and judiciary. This government body oversees Brazil’s 26 states, five regions, 5,561 municipalities and population of 193,734,000. According to the Human Development Index ratio, Brazil ranks 63rd; this number that has been rising since 2003.

Despite the entities in place to preserve equality, Brazil is a country plagued by inequities. In 2009, Brazil’s Gross Domestic Profit (GDP) was 1.594 trillion U.S. dollars and 32 percent of the population was classified as poor. Furthermore, a disproportionate amount of poor people—over half of people living in poverty in the country— are concentrated in the the Northeast region of Brazil. There is also a disproportionate ethnic concentration of poverty in regions made up of predominately black and brown populations. These same inequities translate into overwhelming gaps in literacy, gender roles, education levels, employment and sanitary conditions where individuals of black and darker ancestries dominate. Despite Brazil’s national wealth, this affluence is reserved for the white and/or elite of Brazilian society. Those outside of this class find themselves in nutritional insecurity, dilapidating conditions and with little to no access to quality healthcare.

Brazil is currently combatting health ailments like HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, child malnutrition, and chronic diseases such alcohol/substance abuse, obesity, blood pressure, cholesterol and diabetes. In order to remedy the country’s health ailments and quality healthcare access issues, Brazil has erected the Unified Health System (UHS). In order to streamline and regulate public and private entities providing healthcare, the UHS provides 78 percent of the Brazilian population with health coverage. The rest of the population also receives coverage through a subsidiary program of the UHS. Public institutions are the major supporters of the UHS. Apart from providing coverage, the UHS has three important functions: to survey the nation’s health, provide disease control, and regulate the health sector to promote universal access. The second function of disease control plays a vital role in Brazilian health. The country has been subject to frequent outbreaks of yellow fever, dengue and dengue hemorrhagic fever, and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS). The surge of violent activity in Brazil also plays into Brazilian health discourse and poses a challenge to the work of the UHS. This culture of violence is rooted in the institutional inequities that pervade all stages of Brazilian society.