A number of Brazilian municipalities have been affected by disasters in recent years. Municipal managers need to invest in preparedness to mitigate the impact of events and to restrict damages. Disaster preparedness should be conducted on various fronts, including the health sector, of which pharmaceutical services (PS) are a part. The scope of this paper is to describe and analyze PS preparedn...

The study of the management of weather-related disaster risks by municipalities has attracted little attention even though these organizations play a key role in protecting the population from extreme meteorological conditions. This article contributes to filling this gap with new evidence on the level and determinants of Quebec municipalities' preparedness for weather hazards and response to r...

The aim of this study was to identify and analyze inequities in the access to specialized services in the municipalities of the metropolitan area of Curitiba, Paraná, Brazil. This is an ecological study. In its preparatory stage, this study focused on the socioeconomic, epidemiologic, healthcare network and sectoral financing network profiles of the 26 municipalities comprising this area. Facto...

INTRODUCTION Previous studies have suggested that telecare can improve interorganisational collaboration within fragmented health care systems, yet this outcome has not been examined in a large-scale setting. This study explores the effects of a large-scale interorganisational telecare programme in Denmark based on home-monitoring on collaboration in a telecare network between municipalities, h...

OBJECTIVES Many local governments are trying to establish health in all polices (HiAP), but no sensitive tool is available to measure HiAP growth processes. This study explores the applicability of a general maturity model to classify stages of HiAP and to characterize its manifestations and conditions. METHODS Based on other maturity models we have developed a maturity model for HiAP (MM-HiA...

This article aims to propose an adaptation of the methodology used by Starfield and Shy (2002) to assess the quality of health care in the municipalities which joined the Mais Médicos (More Doctors) Program. The indicators were adapted for each one of the nine criteria proposed in the methodology and were applied to medium and large municipalities in the Metropolitan Region of Porto Alegre befo...

Within the last 10 years, there has been a growing interest in the importance of social capital and older people. The aims of the study are to advance measurements of aspects of social capital based on bonding, bridging and linking that can be used to study the impact of the local community on community-dwelling older populations and to study the distribution of these three measurements of soci...

South African municipalities experience serious challenges in dealing with the interface between politicians and officials. Inappropriate political interference in administrative matters as well as strained relations between key political and administrative officials in the municipalities appear to be the order of the day. Oftentimes, the lack of a separation of powers between legislative and e...

OBJECTIVE To describe an index to identify inequities in living conditions and health and its relationship with health planning. METHODS Variables and indicators that would reflect demographic, economic, environment and education processes as well as supply and production of health services were applied for nondimensional scaling and clustering of 5,507 Brazilian municipalities. Data sources ...

Information technology and the internet have an enormous potential for the development of government services at all levels. These technologies not only offer access to a wide range of electronic services to support the daily life of citizens, but they also could help citizens to participate in the governance of their communities. The term "electronic participation" has been coined to describe ...