Limits and possibilities for the development of public health research in the legal system

ABSTRACT OBJECTIVE To characterize databases of the courts of justice of Brazil as a potential tool for research in Collective Health, in its interface with the legal sciences. METHODS Cross-sectional study of quantitative and descriptive nature, focusing on analysis of strategic management and judicial systems. RESULTS Databases used by the Common Justice in the Federation Units to systematize judicial processes were identified and analyzed. A total of 123 databases were found in the courts of justice per state, with emphasis on the South and Northeast regions, in contrast to the North region, which has a smaller number of systems. This large number of judicial systems limits access to legal operators, and hinders the collection of evidence by health researchers and, consequently, impacts the strategic management of the Executive Branch. There were limitations from design to transparent and democratic data extraction by the users themselves, as well as restricted integration between bases. CONCLUSIONS Although advances have been made in recent years by the courts of justice to unify these databases, the multiplicity of information systems used in the Common State Justice complicates the management of knowledge, limits the development of research, even when carried out by lawyers or researchers in the legal area, as well as generates slow data extraction for public management. It is recognized the need for additional efforts for standardization, as well as for improvement of these databases, expanding access, transparency and integration with a view to a transdisciplinary look between the field of Law and Collective Health.

摘要

研究目的：旨在将巴西各级法院数据库作为群体健康（Collective Health）与法学交叉领域研究的潜在工具进行特性表征。

研究方法：本研究为兼具定量与描述性特征的横断面研究，核心聚焦战略管理与司法系统的分析。

研究结果：本研究识别并分析了巴西联邦各单位普通司法系统（Common Justice）用于系统化司法流程的数据库。经统计，各州法院共设有123个数据库，其中南部与东北部地区的数据库数量较为突出，而北部地区的系统数量相对较少。此类司法系统数量繁多的现状，不仅限制了法律从业者的使用权限，还阻碍了健康领域研究者的证据收集工作，进而对行政部门的战略管理造成负面影响。此外，研究还发现存在多维度局限：从数据库设计到用户自主开展透明化、民主化的数据提取均存在不足，且各数据库间的集成互通也受到限制。

研究结论：尽管近年来巴西各级法院在统一此类数据库方面取得了一定进展，但州级普通司法系统所使用的多元信息系统仍使得知识管理复杂化，限制了相关研究的开展——即便此类研究由法学领域的律师或研究者进行亦是如此，同时还导致公共管理的数据提取效率低下。本研究认为，亟需开展更多工作以实现数据库的标准化，并对现有数据库进行优化升级，以此扩大数据获取渠道、提升透明度并促进系统集成，从而推动法学与群体健康（Collective Health）领域实现跨学科视角的融合。