ArticleHealth and human rights2016
The Judicialization of Health and the Quest for State Accountability: Evidence from 1,262 Lawsuits for Access to Medicines in Southern Brazil.
Article in Health and human rights, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 22 papers.
What it found
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Who cites it
22 citing papers in PubMed.
- Precision Medicine for Cancer and Health Equity in Latin America: Generating Understanding for Policy and Health System Shaping.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2025Review
- Pricing, Procurement and Reimbursement Policies for Incentivizing Market Entry of Novel Antibiotics and Diagnostics: Learnings from 10 Countries Globally.Applied health economics and health policy · 2024Review
- Realizing the Right to Health: A Long and Winding Road.Health and human rights · 2023Article
- Public sector implementation strategies to approach the judicialization of health care: a systematic review protocol.Systematic reviews · 2022Article
- Integrating health technology assessment and the right to health: a qualitative content analysis of procedural values in South African judicial decisions.Health policy and planning · 2022Article
- Prioritization of ICU beds with renal replacement therapy support by court order and mortality in a Brazilian metropolitan area.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- Supreme Court v. Necropolitics: The Chaotic Judicialization of COVID-19 in Brazil.Health and human rights · 2021Article
- Challenge of Incorporating New Drugs for Breast Cancer in Brazil: A Proposed Framework for Improving Access to Innovative Therapies.JCO global oncology · 2021Review
- Judicialization of medicines: effectiveness of rights or break in public policies?Revista de saude publica · 2020Article
- Have Reforms Reconciled Health Rights Litigation and Priority Setting in Costa Rica?Health and human rights · 2019Article
- Health and Human Rights' Past: Patinating Law's Contribution.Health and human rights · 2019Article
- Personalizing Precision Oncology Clinical Trials in Latin America: An Expert Panel on Challenges and Opportunities.The oncologist · 2019Review
- Realizing the right to health in Brazil's Unified Health System through the lens of breast and cervical cancer.International journal for equity in health · 2019Article
- Is the judicialization of health care bad for equity? A scoping review.International journal for equity in health · 2019Article
- The legal determinants of health: harnessing the power of law for global health and sustainable development.Lancet (London, England) · 2019Review
- Article
- Expanding the Debate: Citizen Participation for the Implementation of the Right to Health in Brazil.Health and human rights · 2018Article
- Individual Health Care Litigation in Brazil through a Different Lens: Strengthening Health Technology Assessment and New Models of Health Care Governance.Health and human rights · 2018Article
- How the Uruguayan Judiciary Shapes Access to High-Priced Medicines: A Critique through the Right to Health Lens.Health and human rights · 2018Article
- World hepatitis day. Fighting hepatitis C in Latin America and the Caribbean; an urgent call.Journal of the International AIDS Society · 2017Review
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
Abstract
The impact of increasing numbers of lawsuits for access to medicines in Brazil is hotly debated. Government officials and scholars assert that the "judicialization of health" is driven by urban elites and private interests, and is used primarily to access high-cost drugs. Using a systematic sample of 1,262 lawsuits for access to medicines filed against the southern Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul, we assess these claims, offering empirical evidence that counters prevailing myths and affirms the heterogeneity of the judicialization phenomenon. Our findings show that the majority of patient-litigants are in fact poor and older individuals who do not live in major metropolitan areas and who depend on the state to provide their legal representation, and that the majority of medicines requested were already on governmental formularies. Our data challenge arguments that judicialization expands inequities and weakens the universal health care system. Our data also suggest that judicialization may serve as a grassroots instrument for the poor to hold the state accountable. Failing to acknowledge regional differences and attempting to fit all data into one singular narrative may be contributing to a biased interpretation of the nature of judicialization, and limiting the understanding of its drivers, consequences, and implications at local levels.
Indexed as
Identifiers
27781011PMC5070692What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.