[Social participation in the Unified Health System in Brazil, its potential, challenges and perspectives: a scoping...

In the Brazilian Unified Health System (SUS), social participation is a fundamental principle. With Law 8.142 of 1990, this participation was established through health councils and conferences, but these are not the only means for society to participate in the management of the SUS. The objective was to identify forms of social participation in the SUS and what are the challenges and potentialities of this principle. A scoping review with the research question: what are the forms of user participation in the management of the SUS? The research was conducted in Portuguese, English, and Spanish, in the PubMed, BVS, Scopus, Embase, and Web of Science databases. Forty-six articles were selected for analysis. Seven categories of community participation in the SUS were identified: health councils, user service evaluation research, popular health education, health-related social movements, public consultation, health conferences, and ombudsman offices. The seven mechanisms of social participation in the SUS form a mapping from which it is possible to think of ways to overcome the barriers of each of the mechanisms and how to strengthen them. It also allows for reflection on the reinvention and creation of new models of participation.