Reference Indicators for Primary Health Care in Brazil

Since 2023, the Brazilian Institute of Economics of the Getulio Vargas Foundation (FGV-IBRE), in partnership with Umane, has been dedicated to developing an indicator system to monitor and evaluate the performance of Primary Health Care (PHC) in Brazil. To this end, several national databases have been used, such as DATASUS, IBGE, and SISAB, along with quantitative methodologies that assess infrastructure, population coverage, and continuity of services.

The indicators were calculated for the entire national territory and aggregated at the level of health regions. This indicator system provides a tool for assessing PHC performance, facilitating the identification of critical areas and guiding the formulation of evidence-based public policies.

The metrics established by IBRE are based on four core attributes of PHC, defined by public health researcher Barbara Starfield:

First-contact care: the population’s ability to access health services and receive care when needed.

Longitudinality: the relationship between patients and the health care team over time, ensuring continuous follow-up.

Comprehensiveness: the provision of complete care, including preventive, curative, and rehabilitative actions.

Care coordination: the capacity of PHC, as the entry point to the Unified Health System (SUS), to organize care and integrate with other levels of care.