Public hearings as a tool to improve participation in regulatory policies: case study of the National Agency of Electric Energy

The participation of citizens in public policies is an opportunity not only to educate them, but also to increase their empowerment. However, the best way for deploying participatory policies, defining their scope and approach, still remains an open and continuous debate. Using as a case study the Brazilian National Agency of Electric Energy (Aneel), with its public hearings about tariff review, this paper aims at analyzing the democratic aspects of these hearings and challenges the hypothesis of many scholars about the social participation bias in this kind of procedure. This study points out a majority participation of experts, contrasting with the political content of discussions. And, this way, it contributes to a critical analysis of the public hearings as a participatory tool, indicating their strengths and their aspects which deserve a special attention.

Trends in public health policies addressing violence against women

OBJECTIVE To analyze the content of policies and action plans within the public healthcare system that addresses the issue of violence against women.METHODS A descriptive and comparative study was conducted on the health policies and plans in Catalonia and Costa Rica from 2005 to 2011. It uses a qualitative methodology with documentary analysis. It is classified by topics that describe and interpret the contents. We considered dimensions, such as principles, strategies, concepts concerning violence against women, health trends, and evaluations.RESULTS Thirteen public policy documents were analyzed. In both countries’ contexts, we have provided an overview of violence against women as a problem whose roots are in gender inequality. The strategies of gender policies that address violence against women are cultural exchange and institutional action within the public healthcare system. The actions of the healthcare sector are expanded into specific plans. The priorities and specificity of actions in healthcare plans were the distinguishing features between the two countries.CONCLUSIONS The common features of the healthcare plans in both the counties include violence against women, use of protocols, detection tasks, care and recovery for women, and professional self-care. Catalonia does not consider healthcare actions with aggressors. Costa Rica has a lower specificity in conceptualization and protocol patterns, as well as a lack of updates concerning health standards in Catalonia.

Electronic government policies in Brazil: context, ICT management and outcomes

The State Reform processes combined with the emergence and use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) originated electronic government policies and initiatives in Brazil. This paper dwells on Brazilian e-government by investigating the institutional design it assumed in the state's public sphere, and how it contributed to outcomes related to e-gov possibilities. The analyses were carried out under an interpretativist perspective by making use of Institutional Theory. From the analyses of interviews with relevant actors in the public sphere, such as state secretaries and presidents of public ICT companies, conclusions point towards low institutionalization of e-gov policies. The institutional design of Brazilian e-gov limits the use of ICT to provide integrated public services, to amplify participation and transparency, and to improve public policies management.

Racial inequalities in the socioeconomic, demographic and health conditions of elderly from Maranhão State, Legal Amazon, Brazil: a population-based study

Aging with quality of life does not occur equally among the racial groups of Brazilian elderly, and few studies have analyzed this issue in the states of the Brazilian Legal Amazon. The objective of this study was to investigate racial inequalities in the socioeconomic, demographic and health conditions of elderly residents of Maranhão state, Brazil. The present work is a cross-sectional study of 450 elders aged 60 years or older included in the 2008 National Household Sample Survey. The prevalence of socioeconomic, demographic, health and habit indicators and of risk factors were estimated in white, brown and black racial categories that were self-reported by the survey participants. The chi-square test was used for comparisons (a=5%). The majority of the elderly respondents identified themselves as brown (66.4%) or white (23.3%). There were significant socioeconomic, demographic, habit and lifestyle differences among the racial groups. Most of the black and brown elderly lived alone, reported lower educational levels and were in the lowest quintile for income. These respondents were also highly dependent on the Unified Health System (Sistema Único de Saúde - SUS), exhibited low rates of screening mammograms and lower physical activity levels and had a greater proportion of smokers. However, there was no difference in the prevalence of health indicators or in the proportion of elderly by gender, age, social role in the family or the urban-rural location of the household. These results indicate the presence of racial inequalities in the socioeconomic and demographic status and in the practice of healthy habits and lifestyles among elderly from Maranhão, but suggest equity in health status. The results also suggest the complexity and challenges of interlinking race with socioeconomic aspects, and the findings reinforce the need for the implementation of public policies for these population groups.

Primatology in southern Brazil: a transdisciplinary approach to the conservation of the brown-howler-monkey Alouatta guariba clamitans (Primates, Atelidae)

Human interventions in natural environments are the main cause of biodiversity loss worldwide. The situation is not different in southern Brazil, home of five primate species. Although some earlier studies exist, studies on the primates of this region began to be consistently carried out in the 1980s and have continued since then. In addition to important initiatives to study and protect the highly endangered Leontopithecus caissara Lorrini & Persson, 1990 and Brachyteles arachnoides E. Geoffroy, 1806, other species, including locally threatened ones, have been the focus of research, management, and protection initiatives. Since 1993, the urban monkeys program (PMU, Programa Macacos Urbanos) has surveyed the distribution and assessed threats to populations of Alouatta guariba clamitans (Cabrera, 1940) in Porto Alegre and vicinity. PMU has developed conservation strategies on four fronts: (1) scientific research on biology and ecology, providing basic knowledge to support all other activities of the group; (2) conservation education, which emphasizes educational presentations and long-term projects in schools near howler populations, based on the flagship species approach; (3) management, analyzing conflicts involving howlers and human communities, focusing on mitigating these problems and on appropriate relocation of injured or at-risk individuals; and finally, (4) Public Policies aimed at reducing and/or preventing the impact of urban expansion, contributing to create protected areas and to strengthen environmental laws. These different approaches have contributed to protect howler monkey populations over the short term, indicating that working collectively and acting on diversified and interrelated fronts are essential to achieve conservation goals. The synergistic results of these approaches and their relationship to the prospects for primatology in southern Brazil are presented in this review.

Nursing Supervision: Studying the “Case” of the phenomenon of interorganizational articulation Nursing School and Hospital

The history of this research found a suitable ethos not only by the route of the researcher, but also by the current public policies of modernization and reform that are capable of regulating and transforming the educational and health systems, as well as their professional groups. The reflection meantime developed had raised a clear perception of the organizational change processes by which they interfered with the interorganizational coordination between School of Nursing and Hospital, where internship supervision would be the main protagonist, supported by the meanings that intervening actors have assigned to them. In this context, the search for explicit epistemological and methodological choices leads to look more attentively at the problem, ascertaining it, taking into account the organizational dimensions. In this regard, the choice of a case study was related to the fact that the method allowed to answer the purpose of knowing and understanding the interorganizational coordination phenomenon between School of Nursing and Hospital, namely through the supervision of internships.

Aspectos históricos dos cursos de licenciatura em química no Brasil nas décadas de 1930 a 1980

This article describes some historical moments in the establishment and development of chemistry teacher's training courses since 1930, with the creation of universities in Brazil, until 1980. Correlations between educational and political questions that influenced the directions taken for the formation of chemistry teachers in Brazil are discussed. From a review of the bibliographical sources available, we revisited stances of discussions on public policies related to science teacher's formation in general and in chemistry, particularly, in order to provoke a reflection on what challenges and prospects exist in the current scenario of undergraduate chemistry education in Brazilian universities and colleges.

Focusing illusion in satisfaction with life among college students living in Brazil

Literature shows that there are significant associations between health and happiness. Various countries are considering, contemplating or formally incorporating the happiness variable into their public health policies. Moreover, the private sector has shown interest in the topic. Based on that This article examines the biases in the perception of satisfaction with life among young adults in two Brazilian cities. The study explores the associations between aspects of life and perception of happiness because public policies associated with happiness require an improved understanding of the subjectivity of the sense of well-being. A survey conducted among 368 college students enabled analysis through Multivariate Analysis of Covariance (MANCOVA) and linear regression. The results suggest that, although there were no significant differences in general satisfaction with life between the two cities, there were indications of focusing illusion in the perception of happiness caused by expectations arising from the feeling of personal insecurity in a metropolis.

Sustainable Tourism and Eradication of Poverty (Step): impact assessment of a tourism development program in Brazil

This paper aims to evaluate the social impacts of the Tourism Development Program (Prodetur) in the northeastern town of Porto Seguro, Bahia, Brazil. The method used is based on the difference in difference technique applied to the 1991 and 2000 Census microdata. The results suggest social advances following from poverty relief based on income - where the benefits are distributed, generally, in a relatively equal manner between the native and migrant population. There is a relative deterioration in the sanitary situation, which consists of a very serious problem in the mid- and long-term, whose costs are mostly borne by the native population. Therefore, maintaining the natural capital is the main aspect that distances Porto Seguro’s tourism supply from the concept of sustainability. The article also relies on difference in difference estimators to assess the impacts of local public policies related to the sector.

The institutional configuration of sport policy in Brazil: organization, evolution and dilemmas

Brazil has become the center of the spotlight of the whole world recently, amongst many other reasons, one of them was because it was chosen to host a series of mega sporting events - Pan American Games in 2007, Confederations Football Cup in 2013, Fifa Football World Cup 2014 Games and 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2016. However, little is known about the country's administrative governmental structure focused on sport policy. The available studies focus their analysis on the sport policies content, but not on the arrangement of its structural decision-making. The main aim of this article is indeed to describe, based on official documentation, the evolution and the current arrangements of the government responsible for the administrative structure for the planning and implementation of sports policies in Brazil. Thus, we tried to list the main problems arising from the organization of the Brazilian sports' management. These problems are: (1) inappropriate institutional structure in terms of human resources and obstacles to participation by other social actors beyond the officials (parliament and members of the Ministry of Sports) in the sports policy; (2) disarticulation between public institutions generating redundancies and conflicts of jurisdiction due to the poor division of labor between bureaucracy agencies; and (3) inadequate planning proved by the lack of organization of some institutions, and by the lack of assessment and continuity of public policies over time. Therefore, we must emphasize those problems from above, and due to these administrative arrangements, Brazilian sports' policy has big challenges in the sport development in this country, which includes the creation of a national "system" for sports and a priority investment in sport education.

Green microfinance: the case of the Cresol System in Southern Brazil

Climate change which until recently seemed a luxury for the microfinance sector, now appears to be crucial for the future of the sector. Due to their low adaptive capacity, the millions of MF clients worldwide happen to be the most vulnerable to a changing climate. Adapting previous analysis conducted in Nepal and Bangladesh by Agrawala and Maëlis (2010) to the Brazilian context, in this inductive qualitative study we aim to assess potential synergies between MF and CC actions and what strategies can be harnessed to better respond to CC vulnerabilities at client/MF level. To do so, we investigated the case of the second largest rural microcredit programme in Brazil, Sistema Cresol de Cooperativas de Crédito Rural com Interação Solidária. Albeit important overlaps between Cresol's product envelope and CC strategies exist, there is still room to realise synergies to both mitigate a new potential source of risk to Cresol's portfolio and to increase clients' adaptive capacity.

Spatial analysis of urban violence based on emergency room data

OBJECTIVE: To estimate the spatial intensity of urban violence events using wavelet-based methods and emergency room data. METHODS: Information on victims attended at the emergency room of a public hospital in the city of São Paulo, Southeastern Brazil, from January 1, 2002 to January 11, 2003 were obtained from hospital records. The spatial distribution of 3,540 events was recorded and a uniform random procedure was used to allocate records with incomplete addresses. Point processes and wavelet analysis technique were used to estimate the spatial intensity, defined as the expected number of events by unit area. RESULTS: Of all georeferenced points, 59% were accidents and 40% were assaults. There is a non-homogeneous spatial distribution of the events with high concentration in two districts and three large avenues in the southern area of the city of São Paulo. CONCLUSIONS: Hospital records combined with methodological tools to estimate intensity of events are useful to study urban violence. The wavelet analysis is useful in the computation of the expected number of events and their respective confidence bands for any sub-region and, consequently, in the specification of risk estimates that could be used in decision-making processes for public policies.

Prevalence of alcohol and tobacco use among Brazilian adolescents: a systematic review

OBJECTIVE: To analyze alcohol and tobacco use among Brazilian adolescents and identify higher-risk subgroups. METHODS: A systematic review of the literature was conducted. Searches were performed using four databases (LILACS, MEDLINE /PubMed, Web of Science, and Google Scholar), specialized websites and the references cited in retrieved articles. The search was done in English and Portuguese and there was no limit on the year of publication (up to June 2011). From the search, 59 studies met all the inclusion criteria: to involve Brazilian adolescents aged 10-19 years; to assess the prevalence of alcohol and/or tobacco use; to use questionnaires or structured interviews to measure the variables of interest; and to be a school or population-based study that used methodological procedures to ensure representativeness of the target population (i.e. random sampling). RESULTS: The prevalence of current alcohol use (at the time of the investigation or in the previous month) ranged from 23.0% to 67.7%. The mean prevalence was 34.9% (reflecting the central trend of the estimates found in the studies). The prevalence of current tobacco use ranged from 2.4% to 22.0%, and the mean prevalence was 9.3%. A large proportion of the studies estimated prevalences of frequent alcohol use (66.7%) and heavy alcohol use (36.8%) of more than 10%. However, most studies found prevalences of frequent and heavy tobacco use of less than 10%. The Brazilian literature has highlighted that environmental factors (religiosity, working conditions, and substance use among family and friends) and psychosocial factors (such as conflicts with parents and feelings of negativeness and loneliness) are associated with the tobacco and alcohol use among adolescents. CONCLUSIONS: The results suggest that consumption of alcohol and tobacco among adolescents has reached alarming prevalences in various localities in Brazil. Since unhealthy behavior tends to continue from adolescence into adulthood, public policies aimed towards reducing alcohol and tobacco use among Brazilians over the medium and long terms may direct young people and the subgroups at higher risk towards such behavior.

Temporal evolution and spatial distribution of maternal death

OBJECTIVE To analyze the temporal evolution of maternal mortality and its spatial distribution.METHODS Ecological study with a sample made up of 845 maternal deaths in women between 10 and 49 years, registered from 1999 to 2008 in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, Southern Brazil. Data were obtained from Information System on Mortality of Ministry of Health. The maternal mortality ratio and the specific maternal mortality ratio were calculated from records, and analyzed by the Poisson regression model. In the spatial distribution, three maps of the state were built with the rates in the geographical macro-regions, in 1999, 2003, and 2008.RESULTS There was an increase of 2.0% in the period of ten years (95%CI 1.00;1.04; p = 0.01), with no significant change in the magnitude of the maternal mortality ratio. The Serra macro-region presented the highest maternal mortality ratio (1.15, 95%CI 1.08;1.21; p < 0.001). Most deaths in Rio Grande do Sul were of white women over 40 years, with a lower level of education. The time of delivery/abortion and postpartum are times of increased maternal risk, with a greater negative impact of direct causes such as hypertension and bleeding.CONCLUSIONS The lack of improvement in maternal mortality ratio indicates that public policies had no impact on women’s reproductive and maternal health. It is needed to qualify the attention to women’s health, especially in the prenatal period, seeking to identify and prevent risk factors, as a strategy of reducing maternal death.

Prevalence of health promotion programs in primary health care units in Brazil

OBJECTIVE Assessment of prevalence of health promotion programs in primary health care units within Brazil’s health system. METHODS We conducted a cross-sectional descriptive study based on telephone interviews with managers of primary care units. Of a total 42,486 primary health care units listed in the Brazilian Unified Health System directory, 1,600 were randomly selected. Care units from all five Brazilian macroregions were selected proportionally to the number of units in each region. We examined whether any of the following five different types of health promotion programs was available: physical activity; smoking cessation; cessation of alcohol and illicit drug use; healthy eating; and healthy environment. Information was collected on the kinds of activities offered and the status of implementation of the Family Health Strategy at the units. RESULTS Most units (62.0%) reported having in place three health promotion programs or more and only 3.0% reported having none. Healthy environment (77.0%) and healthy eating (72.0%) programs were the most widely available; smoking and alcohol use cessation were reported in 54.0% and 42.0% of the units. Physical activity programs were offered in less than 40.0% of the units and their availability varied greatly nationwide, from 51.0% in the Southeast to as low as 21.0% in the North. The Family Health Strategy was implemented in most units (61.0%); however, they did not offer more health promotion programs than others did. CONCLUSIONS Our study showed that most primary care units have in place health promotion programs. Public policies are needed to strengthen primary care services and improve training of health providers to meet the goals of the agenda for health promotion in Brazil.