Socio-spatial inequalities in access to drugs in Costa Rica: the contradictions of a solidary care model

Abstract

The socio-spatial inequities in the access to drugs in Costa Rica were analyzed using a survey directed to community pharmacies and interviews with actors of the sanitary context. The survey to pharmacy was based on aleatory stratified random according to the social index of development and was focused toward the questions upon the price of ten drugs in agreement with the profile stratified. The interviews to key informer respond to a qualitative random directed to the main actors of the market of drugs in the country and this went explored the perceptions upon the access to the drugs. Spatial variations in the physical access to the community pharmacies and the drugs' price are evidences of inequities in the access to the sanitary attention. The conception of the health, the market's conditions of the drugs and the lack of regulation in this matter, are identified like barriers to implementation of the principle of solidarity that distinguishes to health policies in the country.