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Internationally, there is a large body of scientific evidence concerning the benefits of integrating health and social care to ensure that frail older people living in the community receive the assistance they need to maintain independence. In the Brazilian city of Belo Horizonte, located in the state of Minas Gerais, an integrated care intervention has been developed: the Programa Maior Cuidado - Older Adult Care Programme (PMC). This programme represents a pioneering example in Brazil of the provision of carers for highly vulnerable older people, through integrated action between public health and social service agencies. This paper draws on the first phase of a mixed method evaluation of PMC, including data from documentary sources, focus groups, empirical observation and expert workshops, to examine the processes that led to the establishment of programme. The origins of the PMC are discussed and its operational processes, with a particular emphasis on integrated activities and the roles of different actors. The paper situates PMC within comparable international experiences of integrated provision for older people and considers how it has been affected by unique context and challenging of a middle-income country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to report a brief history of control actions for Visceral Leishmaniasis (VL) from2006 to 2010 in the Sanitary District (DS) of Venda Nova, Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil, focusing on the use of information systems and Geographic Information System (GIS) tools. The analyses showed that the use of an automated database allied with geoprocessing tools may favor control measures of VL, especially with regard to the evaluation of control actions carried out. Descriptive analyses of control measures allowed to evaluating that the information system and GIS tools promoted greater efficiency in making decisions and planning activities. These analyses also pointed to the necessity of new approaches to the control of VL in large urban centers [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the as a sphere of dialogue between Police and community and, consequently, a new organization of traditionally hierarchical structures through the insertion of the citizen into the management of public policies. The matter of popular participation in public policies emerged as a focus of analysis in Brazilian social sciences, especially after the resignation of city councils, seeking to approximate public policy managers and citizens. In the specific case of public security, the motivation for the engagement of citizens in public policies acquires a more incisive connotation due to the growth of violent crime levels in the country. The present article offers a case study of the Council of Public Security in Brumadinho, a city in the Metropolitan Area of Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais. This case presents relevant elements for the understading of the complex interaction between social and public actors as well as their implications for the construction of public policies. In this way, it is possible to simultaneously discuss the challenges of popular participation and the new arrangement of the public structures, traditionally responsible for managing public security policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a procedure to evaluate sustainable mobility in urban areas. A set of indicators according to three dimensions of sustainability, i.e., environment, economics, and social aspects, are proposed to evaluate mobility in urban areas. The sustainable mobility evaluation is based on an Index calculated through a weighted multi-criteria combination procedure. A group of specialists in Brazil was involved in the development of the Index by defining the weights for the criteria. An application of the methodology in the city of Belo Horizonte, capital of the State of Minas Gerais, with 2.24 million inhabitants, is presented to validate the methodology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]