Public health as a harbinger of a new age for the Brazilian population

Abstract

This article presents the changes that occurred during the history of public health with focus in the 1980s and 1990s. Based on the hypothesis that the changes that occurred during the history of Brazilian public health brought benefits to the population in general, that is, all have Access to health independent of where they live, sex, age, race, ethnicity and socioeconomic conditions. This study is a theoretical literature review that used sources such as: books of higher education institutions, scientific articles, electronic addresses such as Scielo (Scientific Electronic Library Online), Google academic, website of the Ministry of Health and the National Health Foundation. The purpose of the theoretical bibliographic search was to unveil the paths covered in public health to observe the changes of the same until today. Thus, it becomes visible according to research that public health evolves to benefit the population in general, that is, that all citizens have a quality health and provided with the dignity deserved. However, there is a marked difference between the theoretical conception of the single health system (SUS) and its real application and performance for the general population. This difference may be due to difficulties of joints between the spheres.