OBJECTIVE To analyze the differences in health services utilization by users of Brazilian Unified Health System (SUS) and beneficiaries of Supplemental Health (SH). METHODS A total of 288 adult subjects, residing in Belo Horizonte, who participated in the VIGITEL telephone survey in 2009, composed the sample, whose variables were analyzed according to the classification as users of SUS or ben...

this article agrees with recent arguments suggesting that normative and epistemic power is rife within global health policy and provides further examples of such. however, in doing so, it is argued that it is equally important to recognize that global health is, and always will be, deeply political and that some form of power is not only necessary for the system to advance, but also to try and ...

Knowledge is a key feature of the surveyor's portfolio and therefore effective knowledge management skills can help to improve their expertise. Practitioners learn from experience and this is a continuing process. In any organisation junior members draw on the experience of seniors as part of their learning experience and to some degree that learning flow can be reversed. What is required is so...

If professionals are to be equipped better to meet the needs of modern health care systems and the standards of practice required, significant educational change is still required. Educational change requires leadership, and lack of educational leadership may have impeded change in the past. In practical terms standards refer to outcomes, and thus an outcome based approach to clinical education...

In this comment, I build on Shiffman's call for the global health community to more deeply investigate structural and productive power. I highlight two challenges we must grapple with as social scientists carrying out the types of investigation that Shiffman proposes: the politics of challenging the powerful; and the need to investigate types of expertise that have traditionally been thought of...

Introduction: The importance of the periodontal health maintenance and promotion in diabetes mellitus has been supported. Evidence showed that many patients are unaware about effects of diabetes mellitus on oral health. The aim of this study is to evaluate knowledge, attitudes and practice of diabetic patients concerning the risk of periodontal disease and prevention. Materials and Methods: I...