INTRODUCTION:
Health-related judicialization refers to resorting to the Judiciary to obtain healthcare services that were not provided through regular ways and is a serious problem in Brazil and some other countries.

METHODS:
We studied health judicialization in Minas Gerais, the second most populous state in Brazil and the third one considering health judicialization. Data supplied by Minas Gerais Court of Justice (TJMG) from 1983 to 2020 were analyzed. Cases were examined at both the individual level and the ecological level (judicial districts), comparing lawsuit rates with indicators of health needs, socioeconomic conditions, healthcare service availability, and judicial service availability, based on a theoretical model developed specifically for this analysis.

RESULTS:
Of all cases, 32.4% were related to medications, with anticancer and immunomodulatory drugs being the most requested (11.5%). Significant positive correlations were observed between lawsuit rates and the percentage of households with access to sewerage systems (0.29), the percentage of the population over 50 years old (0.31), the Human Development Index (HDI) (0.26), and the percentage of obesity among adults (0.23), and a negative correlation with the percentage of the population self-declared as non-white (-0.39). Lower lawsuit rates were found in districts with higher percentages of illiterate individuals, teenage pregnancies, children with weight and height deficits, people without access to piped water and sewerage, as well as a higher percentage of self-declared non-white individuals, consistent with other studies that found that social inequalities are related to the access to health-related judicialization.

CONCLUSIONS:
The positive correlation between lawsuit rates and the number of judges and physicians may suggest that greater access to healthcare prescriptions, greater judicial capacity for accepting legal demands, or even greater public awareness of rights may increase health-related judicialization.