Participação da comunidade no SUS: o desafio da inserção das propostas de uma conferência estadual no plano de saúde correspondente

Community participation in SUS: the challenge of inserting the proposals from a state conference in the corresponding health plan

Abstract

The incorporation of health conferences’ demands in their respective Health Plans has proved to be a challenge to the effective community participation  in the  Sistema Único de Saúde (SUS) planning. Thus, this study aimed to investigate such a process of public policy formulation from a qualitative and quantitative approach and a document analysis, at the State level. For comparative purposes, the proposals of the 8th Health Conference of the State of Rio Grande do Sul Report and the goals of the corresponding State Health Plan (SHP) were systematized into six macrocategories, subdivided into further 20 operational categories, according to policies, actions and SUS’ services, verifying to what extent the demands of the proposals were contemplated by the SHP goals. It was found that only 20% of the proposals were included in the SHP. Numerous factors may have contributed to this, such as the high number of proposals, the expressive percentage of intersectoral proposals, drafting issues, among others. In addition, it is suggested that an intermediate stage, between the conference and the SHP, could represent an opportunity for improvement in the technical processing of the proposals in order to make them feasible and subject to incorporation.