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Last September, comparative results of the Equity LA- II project were presented at the XVIII Congress of the Spanish Society of Public Health and Health Administration (SESPAS), which was held in conjunction with the XXXVII Annual Meeting of the Spanish Society of Epidemiology (SEE) and the XIV Congress of the Portuguese Association of Epidemiology (APE), in Oviedo (Spain). The event was attended by more than 700 experts from 25 countries, and presented 880 papers.

 

Dr. María Luisa Vázquez, member of the team of the Consorci de Salut i Social de Catalunya, representing the Equity-LA II project, presented three papers with international comparative results of the project. First, in the session "Ethics and health policies" the poster, "Participatory design of interventions to improve clinical coordination in Latin America", which analyzed the process of designing interventions to improve clinical coordination through participatory action-research in public health service networks in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Uruguay. The type and level of participation in the design varied by country and stage, which could be related to the effectiveness of the interventions. Direct feedback between professionals at different levels of care was the common basis for all the interventions developed.

 

  In the session "Evaluation of health technologies and services" he presented two oral communications:. The first, "Effectiveness of Participatory Interventions to Improve Clinical Coordination in Latin America", showed results in clinical coordination between levels of care that indicated some improvements in intermediate (factors) and final (clinical coordination) outcomes in the intervention networks of the five participating countries. Reduced implementation time and process and context factors may have limited their impact. The second, "Effectiveness of interventions related to continuity of health care in five Latin America countries", analyzed the impact of interventions on continuity of care from the perspective of chronic patients. The results showed an improvement in the continuity of information between levels of care in all countries, except Colombia, and improvements in clinical management continuity (decrease in the repetition of medical tests and an increase in the accessibility of consultation with the specialist). And it pointed to the need for more in-depth analysis.