Judicialization of dental demands and the right to health

Abstract

The legal-regulatory framework that structured the Unified Health System significantly influenced the evolution of collective oral health, however, access is still one of the main challenges of health systems  management. In the light of human rights, the right to oral health is an inseparable right of general health. The objective of this research was to analyze the judicialization of dental demands based on the right to
health provided for in the 1988 Federal Constitution. This is an exploratory, descriptive study, carried out in secondary database, obtained in the court decision of the second instance of the Court of Justice of São Paulo, from January 2016 to April 2019. The results were categorized and analyzed by descriptive statistics. It is concluded that the judicial demands in the dental area are more focused on the material and moral indemnities of the provision of dental services than for access and enforcement of constitutional rights to oral health.