Economic evidence of health interventions under the perspective of the Brazilian public health system: why and what for can we produce it and use it?

Abstract

Brazil has been promoting significant advances since the 1990s regarding the production and use of economic evidence in decision-making on health interventions. But this production is still insufficient to provide answers to all the questions raised within the system. Thus, the objective of this article is to discuss the possibilities of using economic evidence available at international scientific literature in decision-making of the Brazilian Public Health System (SUS) and the need to produce and use this evidence in health decision-making. For this purpose, literature review was carried out to identify studies that present relevant results for the issues analyzed in this study. Regarding the transferability of economic evidence produced in other countries for use in decision-making on SUS interventions, there are many limitations. In addition, the discussion about methods for adapting economic evaluations isn’t enough yet. Thus, the possibilities of using economic evidence obtained from the international literature in decisions of the SUS are extremely limited and, therefore, it is necessary to produce them using data and information from the SUS, once it is recognized the relevance of these evidences in the health decision-making.