In the early 90's, Brazil's Ministry of Health started paying for preventive procedures as part of the national dental care program. These procedures, called Collective Procedures (PC) focus on the 5 to 14-year-old target population. Objective: Describe the investments and their coverage both nationwide and by region from 1996 to 1999. Method:Describe based on data that was available at the Oral Health Technical area of the Brazilian Ministry of Health homepage. Results: The scenario obtained shows that despite the increased investments in oral health in Brazil from 1996 to 1999, those for PC decreased from 40.59% in 1996 to 31.51% in 1999. On the other hand, the target population coverage increased from 15.91% (1996) to 16.55% (1999). Comparing the various regions in this period, the highest investment in PC was in the Midwest in 1996 (51.97%) and the lowest investment was in the North in 1999 (8.8%). Regarding the target population, the region with higher coverage was the South in 1999 (28.5%) and the lowest coverage was in the North in 1998 (1.58%). Conclusion: The numbers show that there is no pattern for distribution of investments in preventive actions in Brazil, which reflects on the coverage of the target population. Further studies are necessary to understand the unequal distribution of resources and also to explain the evident reduction in dental caries in the end of this decade.

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