Profile of access and use of medicines in the Brazilian population – contributions and challenges of PNAUM – Household Survey

With the scientific and technological advances achieved in the last decades in the health field, in particular those related to diagnoses and treatments, the relevance and essentiality of the use of medicines for the treatment, control, and prevention of diseases tended to grow. In a world where the capitalistic organization prevails in the production and distribution of health products, and where the human needs do not fundamentally govern these processes of production and consumption of goods and services, many distortions and irrationalities appear in the patterns of drug use and access, as well as in health services in general.