Avaliação da efetividade de restaurantes populares para dimensão do acesso à alimentação

Abstract

Introduction: The evaluation of effectiveness in social programs is of fundamental importance to assess the appropriate use of public resources. It is directly related to the concern with the accountability of these strategies. Effectiveness, in particular, concerns the relationship between the results and the objective, by measuring the impact or the degree of achievement of the proposed objectives. Objective: Evaluate the effectiveness of popular restaurants administered by the Government of the State of Bahia, for the dimension of access to food. Methods: Results: The popular restaurants evaluated are effective in serving 53.1% of the target population of the policy in their total service capacity. Among the 1464 respondents, 778 (53.1%) were target audience. The percentage of coverage of these instruments in the care of the socially vulnerable population was estimated at 1.4%, without considering the other municipalities in Bahia. The average energy value of the meals served by the researched PR units was 853.05 kcal / meal, with low energy density (1.15 kcal / g). It was found that 45.5% of the target audience, served in the RPs, reported difficulty in accessing food in this equipment. Among the reasons cited, are: exceeded the number of meals provided in the distribution (49.3%), the PR was closed (30.1%), the food to be served (12.5%) and others ( 8.1%). The usage profile, 46.6% attended the RPs 5 times / week, 96.0% did not have difficulties to pay, 56.2% did not consider any day difficult to eat and 69.0% traveled with motorized transport. The largest proportion of these respondents were male, were 40 and 54 years old, declared race / skin color not white, had up to 9 years of formal education, and marital status without a partner. Most of the interviewees declared to reside in the municipality of Salvador. Conclusion: The evaluation of the effectiveness of the popular restaurants evaluated showed that these instruments were at the lower limit of effectiveness for promoting access to food for the population with the highest levels of social vulnerability, within their total daily service capacity. This fact denotes that the current quantity of this equipment was insufficient and the number of meals served was insufficient to guarantee users' continuous access to food. In addition, it is necessary to create new strategies to reach the low-income population, including them continuously and effectively in the State's social protection network, substantially reducing the difficulties of access to food that the equipment itself may be causing.