Políticas públicas no Brasil para a população idosa entre os anos de 2011 a 2021 - revisão integrativa

Abstract

Brazil has an estimated life expectancy of 79 years, and protecting the rights of the elderly is a fundamental role of the State, using public policies for this purpose. These policies aimed at the elderly population in Brazil bring a set of measures to improve assistance in several ways. Thus, this paper aimed to analyze public policies in Brazil for the elderly population in the last 10 years. To this end, an Integrative Literature Review (ILR) was carried out, with data collected from the Virtual Health Library (VHL), using the descriptors in health sciences: National Policy on Health of the Elderly, elderly, Integral Care for the Elderly and Health Policy; the search years were 2011 to 2021; Portuguese language and type of publication article, available in full, online and free. Data were organized in tables and discussed using three guiding axes: policies, primary care, and the elderly. To catalog, ordinances, laws and decrees published on the subject, the Ministry of Health's website was searched and a timeline was structured that was used to correlate with the actions implemented over the years. The study pointed out in the field of policies that there is a legislative apparatus in the areas of social protection, defense of economic rights, access to health services, and physical and psychological safety. However, there are weaknesses for social and family inclusion, access to the labor market, technological autonomy, and accessibility. As for primary care, the research showed that health promotion and prevention actions are the most present instruments in the implementation of policies, even though several health services have a traditional profile. There are considerable advances, such as: the offer of multi-professional care, the valorization of interdisciplinary relationships, the inclusion of wellness activities, among others. On the other hand, access to specialized consultations, the performance of exams, and the appointment scheduling system are still knots that the various policies have not managed to solve. And finally, as for the guiding axis, the elderly, the findings revealed that the integrality of care still does not effectively contemplate issues such as the various types of violence, family and social abandonment, and the continuity of care. But the advances are undeniable, in the field of home monitoring, in the care for chronic diseases, such as diabetes and hypertension, and in the expansion of the discussion on active aging. Thus, the research points out that public policies aimed at the elderly have been occurring through primary care, but there is still a gap between the structuring of public policies and implementation, since the national composition of these policies sometimes cannot cover territories with large geographical distances, unpaved roads, communities in isolated areas and for reasons of financial burden of responsibility of the elderly with the family.