OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the access to drugs for hypertension and diabetes and the direct cost of buying them among users of the Family Health Strategy (FHS) in the state of Pernambuco, Brazil. METHODS: Population-based, cross-sectional study of a systematic random sample of 785 patients with hypertension and 823 patients with diabetes mellitus who were registered in 208 randomly selected FHS teams in 35 municipa...