A construção da Política Nacional de Saúde Bucal: percorrendo os bastidores do processo de formulação

Abstract

This work analyses the policy-making process concerning oral health in Brazil, within the context of SUS's health politics. It aims to understand the process of formation of the Oral Health National Politics from 2000to 2004, through a specific institutional actor - the Health Ministry - in order to identify the elements wich may have contributed to the process, the other actors, main areas and strategies developed by them and their consequences in policy-making. For this purpose, official documents were examined and privileged actors were interviewed. The existence of two different policy-making processes must be highlighted: the introduction of oral health in the Family Health Program, and the Smilling Brazil (Brasil Sorridente) Oral health National Politics. In both processes there has been an attempt to increase the importance of oral health in the Health Government agenda, guided by the Executive. In the first process, this attempt occurs through the search of institutional space, where oral health achived an important place in primary care agenda, when oral health technicians tool advantage of an opportunity. In the second moment, conversely, the project was built by a group with a strong political coloring, construction wich was performed outside the government's institutional scope, but with the perspective of fighting and presenting itself in this institutional space.