Abstract

DE OLIVEIRA, Simone Gomes Dias; CARVALHO, Pedro Henrique Azambuja  and  LUND, Rafael Guerra. Social and demographic profile of Unified Health System users in a medium-sized city of southern Brazil. Braz. J. Oral Sci. [online]. 2012, vol.11, n.1, pp. 67-71. ISSN 1677-3225.

AIM: The use of health services is a complex behavior and results from a series of determinants that includes the users' social and demographic characteristics. The current survey interprets the social and demographic profile of Unified Health System (UHS; SUS in Portuguese) users from Pelotas RS Brazil, which was conducted by interviews with 333 users from five Health Basic Units (HBUs). METHODS: The social and demographic characterization was deployed by the variables sex, age, occupation, city/town or district of origin, number of family members, use of continuous medication, diseases and family income. RESULTS: HBU users were mostly women (82.4%), within the 30-40-year-old age range (21.4%), housewives (36.3%) from Pelotas (96.2%) and from the district of Fragata (26.1%). Families of users comprise mostly two to four members (66.6%), with an income of one to two minimum wages (66.2%). Fifty-one percent of the interviewees do not use continuous medication, while hypertension was the most cited disease (51.8%). CONCLUSIONS: An understanding of HBU users' characteristics and their associated social and demographic context may contribute towards a better reception and may confirm the UHS contribution towards universality and equality of public health care.

Keywords : Unified Health System; health profile; social conditions; Brazil.