An evaluation of the effectiveness of the central government monitoring program on health indicators

• Grant number: 13/18781-9
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research
• Start date: January 02, 2014
• End date: January 01, 2015
• Field of knowledge: Applied Social Sciences - Economics - Social Welfare Economics
• Principal Investigator: Marislei Nishijima
• Grantee: Marislei Nishijima
• Host Investigator: Pierre Perron
• Host Institution: Escola de Artes, Ciências e Humanidades (EACH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: Boston University (BU), United States

Abstract

The aim of this project is to evaluate the effects of the monitoring program of CGU (Corregedoria Geral da União or Federal Inspector General) on the performance of Brazilian municipalities in conducting primary health policies, following a random inspection that found some evidence of corruption. Brazilian primary health care has a system of management that is decentralized and is the responsibility of municipal authorities but financial decentralization is still in its early stages. As a result, the central government still finances a large proportion of health provision in the municipalities by transferring funds and employs the CGU monitoring program to control the quality of primary health provided by the municipalities. The effects of this monitoring policy on quality primary care is assessed by using measures of corruption which have been formulated on the basis of the audit reports of the program in the period 2007-2012. These were randomly selected for auditing by the CGU and used together with a set of municipal health indicators, as dependent variables. I hope that after the auditing, the municipal authorities have been improving the quality of their health services. (AU)