LILACS is the most important and comprehensive index of scientific and technical literature of Latin America and the Caribbean, contributing to increase visibility, access and quality of health information in the Region.

The Latin-American and Caribbean System on Health Sciences Information aims to cooperate with the development of research, education and attention in health in Latin-America and Caribbean, ensuring that the technical and scientific information produced nationally and internationally and be accessible to the community and to the health professionals.

The System is coordinated by the Pan-American Health Organization through BIREME, a specialized center that was created to develop OPA’s program of information in health sciences.

The Regional System is a product of the national systems integration, whose structure predicts a National Coordinator and a decentralized net of Cooperative Centers composed of health libraries and documentation centers.

The Information Centers of the Pan-American Health Organization’s seat, in Washington, the PAHO’s regional specialized Centers and the Documentation Centers, located in Representations in several countries, also belong to the System.

Using Lilacs Methodology, the countries that integrate the Latin-American and Caribbean System of Health Sciences Information create national and local databases and cooperate with the modernizing of LILACS databases, contributing with the bibliographical control and the dissemination of the technical and scientific literature of the Region, in the technical cooperation model established by the Virtual Health Library.