ICML 9

9º World Congress on Health Information and Libraries

Salvador, Bahia - Brazil, September, 20 to 23 - 2005

BVS4

4th Regional Coordination Meeting of the VHL

September, 19 to 20 - 2005

Terms of reference

Oficial Language: lang
Panel 2 - Health related decision: how to balance evidence and democracy?

Decisions related to health, involve and affect individuals, communities and societies. Scientific knowledge is an accumulative process that evolves continuously bringing evidences to support decision making process. Is there a contradiction between evidence-based policies and public participation in the decision making process?  How to balance the use of the scientific evidence with the active participation of individuals, communities and societies?

Perspective 1: the cumulative process of health related scientific evidences and their application and communication to individuals, communities and societies. How to overcome the asymmetries of access and understanding of scientific evidence between those that take decisions and those that are the target of these decisions?

Perspective 2: the application of scientific evidences across health sy stems envisaging improvement and control of health services quality and transparency. Which are the ma in challenges for developing countries to establish their health policies as well as their health systems operation based on scientific evidences?

Perspective 3: the participation of the civil society and particularly of the communities is essential for an overall balance on the access and application of scientific evidences. How communities can increase their social capital and social networks through open and persistent interaction with health services in the access to, understanding of and application of update scientific evidences? What are the challenges for the heath services and health professionals?