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Research points out the benefits of the Family-Centered Early Intervention practice, which proposes that it is essential to offer support to the needs of family members. This paper aims to analyze the helpgiving practices offered to family members in three public centers of early intervention, located in Baixada Santista-SP, Brazil. The study was conducted with nine relatives of children aged zero to three years, with delayed neuropsychomotor development and other diagnoses, and with 15 professionals. Semi-structured interviews were conducted through two scripts, one for family members and one for professionals. The data were analyzed from the perspective of content analysis, in the thematic analysis modality. As a result, it was possible to identify more relational than participatory helpgiving practices; however, both were little identified in the participants' statements. In addition, the support offered by the service is more focused on the needs of children, and only in some cases it is directed to the needs of family members. This paper aims to emphasize the importance of providing support to the needs of family members in early childhood intervention services through helpgiving practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to uncover aspects of social life of pharmaceutical pills and based on the theoreticalmethodological perspective of the drugs biography, this paper analyzes the instructions of their leaflets, published in the Dictionary of Pharmaceutical Specialties (DEF), between 1971 and 1990. It seeks to explore the speeches conveyed in papers that accompanied the packaging of the "medicine pill" - to whom they were headed, what they proposed and what social effects they intended - and to understand their participation in the set of associations that allowed the stabilization of oral contraceptives in Brazil. Leaving the pharmaceutical laboratories, the patient information leaflet transited among physicians, nurses, pharmacists, owners and shopkeepers of pharmacies and women, passing from hand to hand, in offices, health services family planning entities, pharmacy counters, medical departments of companies, households and women's bag. They were the important intercommunication vehicles between these actors and in the big chain of associations produced by contraceptive pills, the patient information leaflets contributed to a minimum common denominator that allowed to return a normal and natural control practices of hormone-mediated fecundity and the formation of the fertility control pill market, where goods were giving movement to add economic, symbolic and normative values at the same time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to discuss care practices used with pregnant drug users in public policies, considering how gender relations influence health practices. This is an ethnographic research on attention to pregnant women, who are crack users, in a psychiatric unit in a public hospital and a Clinic in the Street in Rio Grande do Sul. This research was based on intersectional and decolonial feminist studies, as well as the notion of moral economy. The use of drugs by women for recreational purposes is often considered inappropriate and grounds for stigma because it deviates from the normativity of what is expected from being a woman, that are often morally judged. Moreover, the analysis points out how the biopolitical production of a unique imaginary o nmotherhood affects the way in which public policies act towards women. This becomes a fundamental point when considering the social context in which these women are inserted. Thus, the article highlights the importance of intersectional analysis of gender, race and class for public drug policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aimed to understand the concept of health within Collective Health. Our analysis starts from Marxism as a theoretical reference, both to define what is a "concept" and to understand the critical thinking of Collective Health. As empirical research the bibliographic production of the main journals that bring together Collective Health publications as a knowledge area was used, which resulted in 34 papers that somehow treated the concept of health, even if it was not the main object of the study. From this analysis we identified at least three different modalities of definitions, which varied both in the referential basis used to apprehend and analyze empirical realities concerning health, and in the conceptualization of social that could be in this analysis. We have also identified that the papers ranged between a production that was strictly descriptive of these empirical realities and strictly theoretical essays, rather than to produce a concrete (empirical) thought based on the elected definition of social. It was concluded that within Health Collective the concept of health has been taken, in general, either as a notion (a partial approximation of the object) or as a motto, from an ethical-political engagement that ends up relegating the theoretical- conceptual contribution to the background. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The application of behavioral theories in several areas has aroused the interest in investigating how these theories are incorporated by the field of Food and Nutrition, problematizing its interdisciplinarity. This paper aims to contextualize Nutrition as a science and its development in a social context in which neoliberalism operates as a system for managing political, economic, and social life. The aim is to gather theoretical elements related to the notion of behavior extracted from the field of Psychology in order to contribute to the deepening of reflections on the emergence of techniques based on theories of behavior, such as Behavioral Nutrition, Mindful Eating and Intuitive Eating, in addition to presenting considerations on the limits related to the application of these approaches in the training and practice of health professionals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper criticizes some notions and circulating theoretical elements related to the concept of health, taking them as unstable and polysemic. It is an exercise of thought experiment using notions of health - along with notions of disease and care - as they appear in Health writings, to contribute to broader way of thinking about this issue. Five points were elected, presented as doubles - not as dualisms, binarism or dilemmas - as follows: generalizations and singularities; possession and escape; medicalization and moralization; significant and meanings; and limits and margins. This study aims to perceive these notions in their possibilities of expansion and change, in a movement that is productive to the debates about health, far from rigid standards established by univocal scientific bases. We understand that this exercise can contribute to broaden the notion of health that permeates health professional attention to population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents contents from the evaluation made by users from an Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome specialized care center in Southern Brazil, comparing perceptions of the groups with the dimensions of the electronic questionnaire employed in Brazil to evaluate this kind of service. The central perspectives were the comprehensiveness and humanization in health care services. Users were invited to focus groups and the transcriptions of the meetings were submitted to a thematic analysis. The quality of access and reception appeared prominently not captured by the employed instrument and influencing connection, treatment adherence and preference for the service. The demand pressure which impacts negatively on the relation among users and health team was also captured in detail as well as items of dissatisfaction, even the service being predominantly assessed as positive. The prejudice concerning people living with acquired immunodeficiency syndrome also stands out, highlighting the need for organization of specific health practices as well as further studies on the topic. This paper shows the relevance of including users in the evaluation of health care procedures for upgrading care and it also highlights items that could be used in the expansion and qualification of the instrument used in Brazil. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite all the advances in modern medicine, many diseases and chronic health conditions cannot be cured. Chronic progressive and life-limiting health situations are more common in adults and the elderly, but may occur at all ages. Infants with complex chronic conditions (CCC) have clinical weaknesses, high morbidity and mortality rates and, therefore, demand sensory transformations about health care. This paper aimed to explore the challenges arising from the care of chronically ill babies and those who are subject to technological dependence from the perspective of health professionals (doctors, nurses and nursing technicians), seen as subjects capable of psychic elaboration and transformation of their professional practices. The experience of health professionals was approached from a qualitative study in a referral hospital in Rio de Janeiro in 2015, from interviews with 15 health professionals and participant observation. The analysis of the empirical material, dialogued between the French psycho-sociological clinical approach and the contributions of psychoanalysis, recognized and valued the challenges of care practice and the psychic repercussions on health professionals. We sought an in-depth understanding of the reality studied and the uniqueness of everyday experience, which was central to the appreciation of the psychic elaboration and the production of meanings of the subjects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper introduces a study aimed at knowing how health providers from a Family Health Strategy (FHS) service address suicide-related demands. This qualitative research with an interpretative approach was developed through a narrative focus group with health workers of a service located in Porto Alegre, Brazil. The staff's difficulties when working with the suicide topic and the resulting emotional effects were identified. Social vulnerabilities of the territory, suicide as a taboo, the workers' management of suicide-related demands, and the health network inadequacy hamper the work. Feelings of helplessness, guilt and frustration, as well as work-associated stress and overload, were emotional effects identified in the staff. It was concluded that the FHS work has potential for suicide prevention, being critical to strengthen the services network and provide continuing qualification and support to the professionals, aiming to offer the necessary resources to face the difficulties related to working with this topic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aimed to address the experience of the crisis in mental health from the cartoethnography of the existential territories and daily practices of care for candomblé followers in the process of deinstitutionalization in mental health in Salvador, Brazil, and adjacent areas. For these purposes, the cartoetnographic theoretical-methodological approach was used. The research involved unstructured interviews coupled with participant observation in the ethnographic molds in the participants' daily living spaces. Data analysis was based on ethical categories focused on the process of deinstitutionalization and on a second reading supported by what we proposed as the "cartoethnographic matrix of lines of thought". We find that the experience of crisis is very present in the trajectories of the interlocutors, which marks are the interruption of daily life, their moral value and the call (sometimes tacit) of the support network. From the narrative viewpoint, care in emergency rooms and / or psychiatric emergencies is symbolically emptied and even foracluted, while the care support in the terreiros is symbolically rich and offers an horizon for other interpretations and (re)creations of existence; this highlights their importance as institutions that can contribute to the deinstitutionalization in mental health of those who resort to them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discrimination is a social phenomenon that causes damage and inequities in health. This paper aimed to explore the discrimination and its ways of confrontation by university servants. This is a qualitative analytical study, using semi-structured individual interviews, interpreted by phenomenology. The sample was intentional, defined by the snowball technique. Thematic content analysis proposed by Bardin was used, with the help of NVivo software to define analytical categories. The main results reveal a model of confronting / combating discrimination, in which the categories are interrelated. The culture category occupies a central role, linking the strategies of quotas, formal education, legislation and public policies, media and informal education. Quotas allow access to formal education, which reduces discrimination and increases opportunities among individuals. Laws and policies change behavior by both its educational and coercive roles. The media allows interaction and discussion about us who are critical of discrimination in society. Informal education creates viable environments for discussion and encourages less discriminatory living since childhood. This study brings new perspectives and alternative approaches to understand ways to confront discrimination, which is an unfair phenomenon that crosses multiple spaces and social contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the process of African enslavement in Brazil, blacks brought with them an immense symboliccultural background, such as dances, food, festivities and religious ceremonies. In the religious sphere, the process of exchanging African doctrines with cultural elements already existing in Brazilian lands gave rise to the Umbandaist religion. This article aimed to know the conceptions of practitioners and consultants of three Umbanda terreiros (meeting places) about health, illness and care. As a methodological matrix, we used the reference of Institutional Analysis "on paper". The participants were three Umbanda priests and their practitioners and consultants of the terreiros they conducted. As a result, we identified some elements that would explain, according to Umbanda cosmologies, the health / disease processes: energy imbalances; negative thoughts and conduct towards life; nervousness; obsessors; unresolved mediumship or any medical or psychological issue. Therefore, it can be seen that the knowledge of the Umbanda peoples on health is very different from those on which the hegemonically instituted knowledge that directs health professionals is based. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The experience of mothers of children diagnosed with a severe chronic health condition, short bowel syndrome (SBS), has been addressed by a study that took place in a referral hospital in Rio de Janeiro in 2014, with 10 participants. This paper aims to explore aspects of maternal interpretation of the corporeality of babies and its effect on the construction of motherhood. The biographical method has been used, and an interview guide that led to the production of narratives. The interpretation of data, through a dialogue between the hermeneutic depth of Thompson and symbolic interaction, recognized and appreciated the fact that maternity constructions are inscribed in the order of interaction. The different bodies, which seem to defy the human condition in the interpretation of mothers, acquire meaning and intentionality. The dimension of intersubjectivity guarantees the recognition of the baby. The paper concludes that technological devices and special care triggered for the survival of babies with severe malformations may generate a detachment and a sense of exclusion by mothers. Addressing these women must transcend the utilitarian practices based on a "training" of care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Canguilhem's vitalism is not obvious, neither does is consist of a more known form of this type of thinking; it does not come from the old diatribes that, coming from the 19th century, are still relevant to the 20th century's discussions. Canguilhem reclaims vitalism from a unique ontological approach, and does not hesitate to allude to the classics and, most of all, to a Hippocrates that, read mainly through the perspective of the history written by Charles Singer, brings to light other themes such as the critic to the concept of homeostasis revitalized and named by Walter Cannon. Canguilhem gives another perspective to Hippocrates' homeostasis, that was "scientified" by Cannon, giving it mobility that is considered essential to its concept and redraws the vitalism project, rejecting the place of mechanism antithesis. This paper aimed to map Canguilhem's longue durée contribution to the medical discourse, as well as his funding role of a new conception of normality formulated from his own interpretation of a vitalism that, in his point of view, comes from a "Hippocratic spirit". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims discuss the performance of suffering from the narratives of mothers of children with complex chronic health conditions published in a web journal, also following the trail of some links that lead to blogs. The visibility of shared content on the internet, whatever the platform, and its growing social function of joint construction, leads us to turn our attention specifically to this contemporary space. From an immersion of ethnographic inspiration in the writings, movements generated by the narratives were identified: capture, affirmation of a place, constitution of a vector of forces and symbolic struggle. In the form of an essay, we sought to articulate the empirical material discursively with theoretical questions. Internet is an important resource of approximation and linkage in allowing the circulation of counter-hegemonic narratives. Showing their faces and names and their children's can be part of a movement that affirms a suffering individuality, but can also culminate in the production of new senses, expanding the field of possibilities, including symbolic ones for mothers and children with complex chronic health conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper sought to carry out an integrative review of the national production on Matrix Support methodology, whilst encompassing empirical studies on effectiveness and theoretical-methodological review papers on Matrix Support. The used material is comprised of papers that are indexed in the PubMed database, the NLM and the BVS (Virtual Library of Health), between 1999 and 2013, in Portuguese, English and Spanish. We included 28 articles, and its analysis allowed the identification of three categories: 1) foundation goods and consolidation of the concept of matrix support; 2) Review articles on the matrix support; 3) Items arising from empirical research involving the concept of matrix support. The publications showed that the matrix support brings an innovative proposal and powerful to transform the health care model. However, to achieve their goals is necessary to overcome some impasses, several interconnected directly with the implementation of their directives and to overcoming structural problems of the National Health System (SUS). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Psychoanalysis in Argentina has been studied by different approaches and Social Sciences; however, only a few studies have investigated it within the public health system, specifically in hospitals. Based on the results of the ethnographic research carried out in Health Centers in a neighborhood of the Buenos Aires Metropolitan Area, this paper aimed to problematize the listening technique, specifically, the modes of listening that participate in those treatments based on speech and orientated to marginalized populations. By articulating the anthropological perspectives on health, psychotherapies and psy technologies on the one hand, and on the sense on the other, in this paper the modes of listening are understood and analyzed as perceptual, corporal and expressive actions. Finally, based on a ethnographic approach, it is suggested that to hear and to listen, being listened and to speak within the treatments, can be understood as only one case related to a complex set that these actions are carried out in everyday life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Medicine and therapy developments based upon scientific principles of biosciences and health biotechnologies - with the use of live cells which are difficult to standardize - have been subject of wide public debates at the global level. The area has been recently defined as one of regenerative medicine that includes stem cell research and therapy, the focus of our study. This paper presents the main historical research events in cellular research, describes regenerative medicine's present stage of evolution and the characteristics of the main public policies developed, most especially in the leading countries and in relation to the regulation of intellectual property rights. A quantitative and qualitative analysis is developed, drawing upon different sets of secondary data collected internationally, bibliographic and archival information from global regulatory institutions, updated journal reviews as well as of specialized articles published in international journals. This information is reviewed guided by the following questions: which are the main trajectories in health innovation in this area? Which factors have most highly influenced its evolution? The paper concludes with reflections on the specific impacts of associated developments on collective health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the policy analysis that underpinned the Brazilian Sanitary Reform (SR), responsible for the defining the Unified Health System and for the proposal to make universal health care a right under the Federal Constitution of 1988 (FC1988). The paper highlights the role of political argumentation by the epistemic community of experts in the health field as central to the redistributive health sector reform. Although Brazil's health system is defined by the FC1988 as comprising universal access, hegemonic public funding and direct provision of care by the government, today it is fragmented and under huge influence of the private sector. In a comparative perspective, participation by private health insurance is much higher than in other emerging countries. This paper argues that, as FC1988 proposed no veto against the market's operating in the health sector, private health care and health insurance companies with greater voice have succeeded in imposing preferences in decision-making arenas. The paper concludes that the analysis of the institutional limits of redistributive public policies in Brazil presents a challenge to the SR's epistemic community today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to analyze two criticisms concerned with the publication of DSM-V that focused the attention of the international community: the criticism of Thomas Insel, Director of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), and the criticism made by Allen Frances, who was the head of the task force that developed the DSM-IV. Both will be analyzed having as frame the courses given by Michel Foucault at the Collège de France, particularly The abnormals, Psychiatric power, and Security, territory and population. Besides these two criticisms, it will also analyze Ian Hacking's text Lost in the forest, published after the release of DSM-V. Hacking proposed in this paper that we must not pay attention to each new diagnostic category (the trees), but in the general diagnostic strategy presented in the manual, considered as a whole (the forest). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nucleic acid based amplification tests (NAT) are employed as complementary tools to control the transmission of infectious diseases through contaminated blood. In 2002, a decree from the Brazilian Ministry of Health made compulsory the use of NAT by all the blood services in the country, a measure that was challenged by costs related to the test incorporation. As the strategy to introduce the test in the blood banks serving the public healthcare system (Sistema Único de Saúde), a public Consortium was constituted to develop a local version of the kit. On the basis of qualitative fieldwork, the authors investigate the strategies used by the Brazilian laboratories and universities to nationalize the kit through capturing and assembling its various components. The paper contributes to revealing the challenges and limits to the production of in vitro tests for infectious diseases in Brazil, as well as the repercussion of such an initiative to the national healthcare innovation system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Biological Psychiatry emerged in the 1980s in the United States with the publication of DSM-III (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders). This manual intends to be a-theoretical and to provide objective descriptions of "mental disorders" by using diagnostic criteria that do not include discussions about the aetiology of these "disorders". Hence and despite the "biological" label conferred to this branch of psychiatry, there is no explicit concern to ascertain the possible biological origins of "mental disorders" in DSM-III. In this paper we intend to examine the modifications in North American Psychiatry following the introduction of the first psychotropic medications and the subsequent role played by the pharmaceutical industry in this process. Thus, what is under analysis in our article is that, by appropriating psychotropic drugs as the first therapeutic option, Biological Psychiatry creates an alliance with the pharmaceutical industry that inserts it into a technoscientific network that makes it difficult to know the limits between Biological Psychiatry, Psychopharmacology and the Pharmaceutical industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reflects on the experiences of women regarding childbirth care in a public maternity hospital in Porto Alegre-RS. It adopts a human rights perspective, understanding humanization as a broad guarantee of women's rights to a safe, socially supported and pleasurable parturition. This is an exploratory qualitative study, using participant observation techniques, semistructured interviews and documentary research. Twenty-five postpartum women, aged between 18 and 38, took part in the study. Participant reports and field records were examined through Discourse Analysis. As a result, it was identified a fragmented nature of the practices considered as "humanizing", linked to protocols of procedures in the management of childbirth and often linked to inflexibility regarding these protocols. The overrating of interventionist technologies/ practices in women's body, as well as the hierarchies between professionals and users appeared in the reports and the observations. Subjective experiences of motherhood seemed not to be considered and were left on the margins of care. It was identified specific modes of obstetric violence experienced by grassroots women, which are trivialized by the women themselves in accordance with what they expected from a public service. These situations reinforce reproductive hierarchies and end up leaving these pregnant women "on the fringes of humanization". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This is an exploratory literature review that aimed to understand the role of the Supplemental Health Performance Index (IDSS) Program of Health Plans Operators Qualification, prepared by the National Health Agency (ANS-PQSS). The working proposal was to increase knowledge about the history of this index as well as the impact of its use for regulation and industry concentration by analysis of official documents and academic papers written on the subject. We noticed that the academic literature is extremely scarce on this subject, which alone justifies the need for further study of the PQSS. The research concluded that the instrument used by the NSA is effective, democratic and participative regarding the achievement of objectives of the Education Program of the Health Plan Operators, and promoted greater transparency to the private subsystem. However, it was also found that the IDSS had a discriminating and concentrating role of the market in favor of private oligopolies, going against the normative principles of the ANS on consumer protection, regulated competition and public interest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the role of senior centers in human aging. Through literature review we explored history, experiences and possibilities in senior centers. We perceive "seniculture" as cultivation, but also social control of the elderly. Avoiding control, the network care can guide their actions by selfassessment of the elderly and their perception regarding the quality of life. We emphasize the importance of bonds, the caregiver-cared relationship as a space of transformation in the way of dealing with aging. We also propose care center strategies to provides opportunities for intergenerational relations and avoid age-segregation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper discusses the development in Brazil of the field of Collective Health field as grounded on three principles similar to those of the policy sciences proposed in the US by H. Laswell in the 1950's: multidisciplinarity, resolution of problems and normativity. Since then, the idea of science applied to the improvement of the policy process spread under the name of policy analysis. While in the USA normativity was seen by political scientists as incompatible with science's core values, in Brazil this convergence originated the academic field of collective health in the 1970's when health reform movement, supported by political parties, labor unions and social movements, developed. With democratic regime and deep changes in the health sector, the use of scientific and analytical knowledge by decision makers got momentum in Brazil as well as the role of the collective health which joined knowledge production and political action. The paper shows that as the field developed, a double process occurred: on one hand, the support for policy oriented studies as well as of Abrasco in the assertion of the multidisciplinary and normative features of the collective health. On the other hand, in the sphere of academic accreditation, the epistemic disputes for scientific legitimating and the predominance of academic legitimacy based on biomedicine criteria affecting the access to financial resources and calling into question the normative and multidisciplinary principles that originated the field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we aimed at analyzing, from the perspective of workers themselves and under the methodological approach of qualitative research, the meanings of readjustment in the lives of professors at a public university. Eight readapted professors with stable relationship with the university and two others from Application School have participated in this study. As for the discussion of the material, we have chosen the method of discourse analysis, aiming to interpret from their own speech and experience, how the professors deal with the fact that they are readjusted. The main categories of empirical results from the speech analyzes were: "You have to catch up with your papers to be published and teach and prepare lessons, as well" "The readjustment was favorable to my health condition just because I've quit classes", "There is chronic lack of professors here", "The worst in the process of readjustment is the treatment you receive from colleagues", "In central expertise you are very badly treated". It was concluded that the functional readjustment is a process generated by collective work conditions, for example, the overhead of classes, which requires the need for collective character of institutional interventions to promote healthier working environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to analyze the women's status during labor. We start with the understanding of the biomedical rationality that characterize the obstetric paradigm, by the technical and technological intervention on the female body, in the belief of its biological instability and the liminal character of the women in labor, with the expectation of normal birth. The methodology used was the participant observation of women in labor in a public maternity in the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The analysis was based on the viewpoint of the theory of rituals, considering the technical and technological interventions on the women's bodies. The dialogue established between the obstetric staff and the women in labor includes different perspectives, actors, settings and instruments, affirming the bodies' suffering as the great negotiator of the ritual dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fragmentation of care and the difficulty of offering comprehensive care pose the need to establish a cohesive regional health territory with cooperation among municipalities. As a locus of regional governance, the health authorities' Regional Inter-managerial Commission (Comissão Intergestores Regional, CIR) is a space for concertation and cooperation to strengthen the health region. This paper aims to identify how regulation of specialized health services is addressed in CIR discussions and what the chief recommendations are. A qualitative study was conducted from 2013 to 2015, on the basis of a documentary review, by analysis of the minutes and monthly observation of CIR meetings, which involved 19 municipalities. The results indicated that, despite diversified agendas, the focus was hospital care. Regulatory processes considered were restricted to creating regional flows to hospital care. A concern was observed with the permanent review of the funding ceiling for the agreed integrated programme (Programação Pactuada e Integrada, PPI) and with the indicators of the system for agreeing health guidelines, goals, targets and indicators (Sistema de Pactuação de Diretrizes, Objetivos, Metas e Indicadores de Saúde, SISPACTO). In the case studied, the CIR was a powerful space for regional governance. The meetings highlighted the common difficulties and the managers' strategies for surmounting problems in supply and access to specialized services among municipalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Besides presenting implications inherent to any illness, female breast cancer is also one of the most feared cancers, affecting not only the anatomic body, but mainly some psychosocial aspects of the patient and, among these, the body image is highlighted. This paper aimed to carry out a systematic review of papers that approached the body image in breast cancer, with the description of the content of the production. To do so, a review was carried out of papers published between 2000 and 2010 on indexed scientific journals, through searches conducted on bibliographic databases SciELO, PubMed, PePSIC and PsycINFO. We have concluded that breast cancer ends up causing the body image of the assisted woman to fall ill, and that the impact of such cancer varies according to the type of surgical procedure chosen, the complementary treatments adopted, the support network that surrounds the patient, and their individual characteristics. The alteration in the body image has multiple implications in the sexual and conjugal life of the woman, affecting the relations with her social circle and with herself, influencing her self-esteem and her sense of femininity, possibly leading to symptoms of anxiety and depression. Although advancements have been verified in the study of the relation between body image and breast cancer, this research points to the existence of a fertile field of investigation about the theme, still little explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to analyze the use of the variables race, color and ethnicity in epidemiologic studies, carried out with Brazilian populations. This is a systematic review, conducted in the PubMed bibliographic database, on papers published between January 2000 and July 2010. A data extraction form was used to obtain data from all individual studies, such as their objectives, the relevance of the racial/ethnic classification in their analyses, participants' socio-demographic characteristics, including aspects related to the methods of racial classification, as well as the adherence to a set of recommendations on the use of race, color and ethnicity in biomedical publications. After initially identifying 1,174 references, 151 were included in the review. Higher proportions of each of the following results were observed among papers in which the racial/ethnic classification was central to their analyses - of these, 18% justified the use of racial/ethnic categories; 16% regarded racial/ethnic classifications as context-dependent and fluid; 65% described the methods adopted for racial/ethnic classification; 17% took the racial/ethnic classification as a proxy for genetic variation; 26% considered such classification as a risk factor for health outcomes; 47% considered socio-economic factors in the interpretation of racial/ethnic inequalities in health; and 27% adjusted these racial/ethnic disparities for socio-economic factors in their statistical models. Only two studies elucidated the concept underlying the use of race, color or ethnicity. An expressive amount of the reviewed epidemiologic studies does not follow minimum established criteria on the use of variables regarding racial/ethnic classification, such that this should be urgently improved in public health research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Between 1940 and 1960, there was extensive academic research in the field of sociology and anthropology of so-called community studies in Brazil. In the era of large projects in the social sciences in the 1950s, involving research on race relations, education and health, we highlight the research conducted in the São Francisco Valley, under the coordination of the sociologist Donald Pierson. Attention is given in this paper to the issue of health in these studies as a means to make intelligible the relevant issues at the time, namely: cultural resistance to change, relations between tradition and modernity, tensions and complementarities between scientific knowledge and folk healing practices, among others. The examination of the research project of San Francisco identified the issue of health, linked to socioeconomic and cultural aspects, emerges as a key to the knowledge of living conditions and social reality of the communities investigated. Social scientists have sought to describe them in detail and comprehensively, taking the process of cultural change as the main axis of research. This paper presents the research that formed the said project and shows how social scientists have addressed the issue of health in their work. Linked by the theme of health, social sciences and the development context of the 1950s are gathered in the San Francisco Project, whose research allows us to understand the dynamics of social change in that period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the regulatory role that would fit the National Supplementary Health Agency (ANS ), from the results of researches and studies on the practices of micro-regulation performed by private managed care companies on hospital providers they contract. It is based on several studies, especially on the research by Ugá el al (2007), whose results allowed the questioning of issues related to the necessary regulation of some elements of the relationship between health managed care companies and hospital providers, key to ensuring access and qualification of health care received by customers of those companies, as well as the importance that hospital providers have for the public health system, SUS. The paper aims, therefore, from the studies on the subject, to reflect on the regulatory role to be played by ANS in the contractual relations between managed care companies and providers and on the role that would fit to the SUS on this matter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Health Councils, institutionalized in the early 1990s, were designed as alternatives to the traditional model of lobbying. they have the legal power to formulate strategies and monitor implementation of health policy at the federal, state and municipal levels. today, all municipalities and states in Brazil have a Health Council, with representatives of users, professionals and managers of the unified Health system. users have equal representation in the other two segments. this paper aims to assess the motivations that representatives of the users have to participate in this instance the public interest representation. Methodologically were interviewed 12 councilors, representatives of users in Rio de Janeiro, Porto alegre and Recife. the evidence found in the words of the users' counselors surveyed indicated the ratification of patrimonial practices. this paper adds to the analytical efforts of some researchers in recent years have evaluated the experience of organization and actions of the Health Councils, and innovates to assess the views of users' counselors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aimed to discuss the medicalization of the risk for psychosis, and more specifically, the building of a new diagnostic category which has been carried out by the DS M-5 elaboration Task Force, named psychosis risk syndrome and, more recently, attenuated psychotic symptoms syndrome. The methodology was the bibliographic review. A brief account on the genealogy of risk in pshychiatry was done. The initial part of the article sought to discuss the medicalization in a more general manner, focusing on aspects of social control and technologies of the self, under a Foucaultoriented approach. Subsequently, emphasis was given to the process of medicalization of the psychosis risk, particularly to the building of a category related to such risk. Within the reach of this process, the possibility of early intervention in the psychosis in order to retard its onset was emphasized. It is still unclear whether the early intervention can reduce the severity of the clinical status once already installed or even prevent its appearance. With respect to the limitations, the risk of producing hyper-medicalization with the building of the category, leading to indiscriminated usage of neuroleptic drugs and its related risks as well as the stigmatization of individuals included in this category were addressed. The problem of the high number of "false-positive" individuals, i.e. individuals which are included in the category and later do not develop any psychotic disorder, was also addressed. This paper attempted to produce a consistent review to the building of the nosological category under discussion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the Brazilian experience of health regulation from 1999 to 2008. It aims to understand the interfaces of the regulatory process in health in Brazil, particularly the pharmaceutical industry, seeking to identify, historically, the actors and contexts relating to the proceedings. The research was based on literature review and survey of the resolutions of the Board of the National Health Surveillance Agency. This survey identified the concentration of these resolutions in the following areas: drugs, human resources and food. Regarding drugs, emphasis was placed in three key words: drug registration, practices and substances subject to special control. In addition to a brief history of the evolution of Brazilian health surveillance, this paper focused on the regulatory aspects of the National Health Surveillance Agency and its relationship with the pharmaceutical industry. Therefore, the text was guided by the desire to answer the following question: is the experience of regulation of the National Health Surveillance Agency able to cope with the adverse scenario created by the world crisis, especially with regard to the pharmaceutical industry? The main conclusion of this study is that despite the many challenges to be overcome by the National Sanitary Surveillance Agency in Brazil today, the experience of regulation has made good progress in this decade. A further finding is that these developments were, for the pharmaceutical industry, a protection against the adverse situation created by the global crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a critical review of contemporary international literature on new forms of governance and public engagement, and focuses on cutting-edge health biosciences in the fields of social and public health. New genetics confronts individuals, communities and national States with a redefinition of conventional assumptions on the nature of life and of relationships between living beings. In industrialized countries, these developments have contributed to reorganize relationships between citizens, scientists and policymakers, and have led to the design of public policy strategies that, simultaneously, promote the engagement of the general public and exclude some of their contributions from regulatory frameworks. The main aim of this paper is to discuss selected theoretical concepts on these topics, as an incentive, on the one hand, for a reflection on the evolution of theories and, on the other, for the dissemination of contributions eventually relevant to public participation in the Brazilian context. Examples are provided on the case of stem cell research and therapy (SCR), based on data from an ongoing research project coordinated by the author. Towards the end, the text analyzes the public consultation processes on stem cell research developed in Brazil and their limited inclusion of voices from civil society organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Clinical and socioeconomic aspects of dyslipidemia in patients with cardiovascular diseases This paper discusses the clinical and socioeconomic factors arising from the presence of dyslipidemia in patients with cardiovascular disease (CVD). There are numerous studies related to CVD, oral use of statins as statins, and the economics aspects involved with an impact on health. In addition to demonstrating the importance of the treatment of dyslipidemia, the paper shows the pharmacoeconomic viewpoint, i.e. costs generated by the pharmacological treatment of this disease versus the costs of cardiovascular events and their consequences. There is therefore relevant relationship between the social impacts arising from physical disability and work, early retirements, among other important costs that could be avoided with a comprehensive economic analysis and efficient health services in Brazil. In this context, we emphasize the importance of joint analysis of the clinical and socioeconomic aspects of dyslipidemia that could influence the decisions of health authorities at the time of preparation of clinical protocols of pharmacological treatments to be implemented within the SUS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes and analyzes, in the perspective of federal financing, the development of the so called Política Nacional de Saúde Bucal (PNSB) [Dental Care National Politics]. It considers the progress of improvement of access provided by the inclusion of Dental Care Teams (DCT) in the Family Health Strategy (FHS), and the creation of Odontological Specialties Centers (OEC) and Regional Laboratories of Dental Prostheses (RLDP). Despite the importance of such improvement, this paper aims to reflect on the following issue: how the Decree 302/2009, that disengages DCT from FHS, is able to ensure the already achieved access with continuing financial resources? So a bibliographical and documental analysis was conducted, comprising the issue of SUS Operational Norms until the 2006 Health Pact. In the final remarks, the authors point out that most part of financial resources for dental care coincides with the policies adopted by the Health Ministry in the 1990's: primary care re-organization through the Family Health Strategy, and the incentives politics, as a way of transferring federal resources. Also, they highlight the risk of retreat brought by this decree, as it jeopardizes both the primary care re-organization process in dental care, and its financing, once the incentives politics of the Health Ministry is concerned with the Family Health Strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper arises as a way of systematizing the reflections based on the "Intercultural tensions and the impacts on the health-disease process in the Guarani Mbyá from the city of Aracruz, State of Espírito Santo, approached by its authors, under a process for knowledge development within the Post-graduation on NUrsery at Rio de Janeiro Federal University (UniRio). The paper aims to stimulate a reflection about the contradictions arising from the health politics for indigenous populations in Brazil, whose guidelines do not contribute for the construction of new approaches that raise the value of diversity in the ethnical and cultural viewpoints. Its approach can be classified as descriptive with qualitative approach of a study case. Data were collected from semi-structured interviews conducted together with members of the Mbyá, Aracruz, Espírito Santo, and its analysis was based on the rules that subsidize indigenous healthcare actions. The conclusion is indigenous healthcare is influenced by local, regional and global political, economic and social interests, that, in many respects, overlap or neglect those aspects so necessary for the promotion and protection on the quality of life of the Mbyá groups living in Aracruz. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Family Health Strategy focuses on actions to promote health, developed by its professionals along with the community. In the immanence of this group we find lines that develop reflexive processes that can release the production of a creative know-how. In this sense, the inclusion of psychology in the Family Health Support Nucleus (NASF) can contribute to the fulfillment of an expanded clinic in primary health, critical to the so-called healthy models, mostly orthopedic and modeling, open to trials and worried about reconnecting clinic/politics/production of ways of life. In this paper we question some demands of Family Health teams addressed to the NASF psychologist, their production, ethical and political implications for clinical practice and resulting subjectivity processes. It sought to analyze and map discourses, possible dialogue and assemblages, whose expressions are translated as demands for health professionals. In many cases, these demands express moral considerations, idealized forms of health and well-being. We bet that the construction of the clinic is the product of a collective desire, able to withstand the mechanisms of capture and disciplining of life. This paper proposes that, starting from the daily challenges, the team will be able to discuss, question and become stronger enough to claim healthy ways, free of pre-established standards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to present partial results of the multicentered research "Masculinities and Health Practices". This research explored the meanings of health and illness among the male population in Florianopolis and the healthcare adopted by them. The research methodology was based on seven focal groups with male patients of the local health services, interviews with the professionals who take part of the sexual health and reproductive team of the Santa Catarina University Hospital, as well as 260 interviews with males. It also explored gender discursive practices of the medical team (doctors, nurses, psychologists, social assistants, and health professionals in general) regarding healthcare and the availability of the services for the male population. Judith Butler's philosophical and methodological proposals regarding intelligible gender, performances and its consequences for the constitution of the subjects was the theoretical vector of analyses of the empirical material. The paper also considers the biopolitical project that encapsulated these ideas, in particular the Unified Health System (SUS) and its principles of universality, integral care and equity. The concept of gender is a key element of the health risk pattern among the males and how they perceive, act and take care of their bodies, both as possibility of values transformations or reiteration of current values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main purpose of this paper is to introduce the Human Attention of Low Birth Weight-Kangaroo Care as clinical guidelines in neonatal intensive care. It will also try to link this clinical guideline and another component of neonatal infant care: the Family-Centered Care. Based on this relationship, this paper proposes that Human Attention of Low Birth Weight-Kangaroo Care should be catalogued as a Potentially Better Practices and also, considered as a Health Care Technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Starting from the central ideas of the paper "A four-way approach to training in the health field: teaching, management, care, and social control", by Ceccim and Feuerwerker, published in 2004 in this journal, the author brings a contribution to this subject by proposing a theoretical essay in which each element of the four-way approach will be thought as specific discourse. To do that, Lacan's four discourses theory is brought in to build each discourse and to do the first analyses of the effects on training in health. After an elementary introduction about that theory, the author tries to articulate the four-way approach elements and built with his reader each one of the discourses, namely Teaching, Management, Care, and Social Control. The latter has been worked with more detail, according to the arguments of the original paper which gives it importance, and is now renamed as the User's Discourse to highlight the subjective element on that one. Finally, future researches paths are presented from several interrogations allowed by the construction and first analysis about the study on discourses effects. This work intends to collaborate in the same research line of the paper that inspired it by putting on questions to clarify the subject of Social Control discourse's possible conditions to interfere and produce the acts on health field as well as an element of the professional health training. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to analyze the approach and concept of "adolescent" and "youth" commonly found in health-related official documents published by the Brazilian Ministry of Health, as well as the organization of the approach to health proposed for these subjects. Furthermore, an attempt was made to contrast, compare and relate the official documents with the experiments and research taken from selected publications, trying to propose strategies for the improvement of present health policies. The approach was explorative, descriptive and document-based, and the study was carried out through the review of official documents published by the Brazilian Ministry of Health and of papers available in previously selected scientific publications. The data were discussed, by means of the analysis of the contents and the structuring of three analytical categories, considering: the concept of adolescence and youth, the perspective of public policies for the youth and the analysis of the health-disease process in youth contrasted with health practices. The conclusion was that the health sector's approach is centered on the concept of adolescence under a perspective of risk, with little regard to youth, and that fact is reflected upon structured public policies. All the health-related publications analyzed clearly show the fragmented comprehension of the health-disease process, with little regard to an integral approach to the health of the youth. The evidences of this study point to the need of integrating health with other youth-oriented policies, maintaining the dialog with the youth-related academic production for the improvement of the measures aimed at that population and the incorporation of such references in the field of health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper aims to reflect on contemporary eating based on a study on educational strategies used by weight-loss programs offered through the Internet, which detect a possible transition from the idea of dieting for the eating re-education. It identifies the main message put forward by the sites is "lose weight in a healthy, balanced and natural way, through the adoption of new eating habits, where you can eat everything without hardship and sacrifice, with pleasure, without deprivation of social life" and that they use the sort of strategies combining three elements: the encouragement and motivation with a strong psychological and marketing, "eat everything" with the promise of not giving up the pleasure and the "no hunger" how to control the appetite. The paper also discusses aspects of the new meaning of eating and food that involves the construction of a new eating distinction. Finally, we remark that the present moment seems to build basis that support the contemporary eating discipline. This new discipline, if we can call it so, crosses the complete denial of food, found in traditional diets, to an attempt to reaffirm diet, by recovering the pleasure of eating. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a preview of our doctoral research work, based in the political action of the groups self-denominated "Madres de Barrio Ituzaingó Anexo" in the city of Córdoba, Argentina. Since late 2001, the members of this group started fighting for life, health and environment, in the context of an environmental problem that produces over 200 illnesses and deaths in a population of 5,000 habitants in the neigborghood, mainly caused by fumigations with agrotoxics in the soybean fields adjacent to the houses. The modes of self-organization displayed by "las Madres" against the infringement of their rights plus the inefficiency and also abandonment of the State in the protection of the ones affected by the pollution, made this citizenship practice an example to think about the struggle for rights. This paper is divided into three sections. First, we present the methodological and conceptual elections that frame our reflections: the contributions of pragmatism (Dewey and Joas), the narrative turn (Ricoeur) and contemporary discussions in biopolitics (Agamben, Hardt y Negri, Virno). Second, we join the fight of the Madres de Barrio Ituzaingó Anexo and their contexts. Third, we describe some scenes of the fight of the Madres against the fumigation with agrotoxics, and to that purpose we introduce three notions to think the citizen self-organization: body, experience, narrative. These will be considered key aspects of the political practice in which the sense of politics as action is played, as the power of making and speaking of the citizenship that acts in self-defense. Through the act of their affective, cognitive and linguistic capacities, these citizens create learnings, practical wisdoms and achievements in the defense of their rights, but they are not free from problems and obstacles in their claim for justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to explore how men, in the presence of suspect or diagnosis, can assimilate information about sexually transmitted diseases (STD) and how this comprehension can integrate with their therapeutic itineraries. This study is part of a larger research about the access to diagnosis and treatment of STD (excluding HIV/Aids). It involved 18 individual in-depth interviews with men attending in health services, and four focus groups with service workers. All participants have access to information on STD by lectures and campaigns, especially about Aids. Information has different meanings when there is lack of signs/symptoms or when there is the presence of STD's: feeling of invulnerability or doubts, fears and shame, respectively. The secrecy that internet can provide became a prime source of information when there is a suspicion/diagnosis of STD, but this information can reproduce the biomedical discourses, and do not give answers able to mitigate moral judgments and STD's stigma. Men choose the doctor as the mainly way of treatment and care, which justifies the persistence to look for health care services. Besides the range of services, it seems seasonable that information follows health communication, according to the population's needs, and digital inclusion can be synonymous with digital citizenship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to answer the following question that arouse during fieldwork: why some people with hanseniasis and treated with multidrug therapy (MDT) feel healed and others don 't? From a multi-sited ethnography in the transnational (global program for hanseniasis from the World Health Organization), national (Portuguese and Brazilian moral landscapes and biopolitical paradigms), local (clinical practice and incorporated experience of people with hanseniasis in both countries) scales, it examines how the uncertainty documented in the clinic and the gap experienced by some people between the bacteriological cure and the feeling of being healed, opens for a controversy on the main postulates that sustain the use of MDT as an autonomous entity and diffract the contemporaneous framing of hanseniasis and the institutional responses to it. Finally, it concludes on the need for including an incorporated choice that might widen hanseniasis ' ontological politics and rebuild a new participatory paradigm of care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Fundação Estatal Saúde da Família (FESF-SUS) is a Public Foundation. It has been established after a long process of discussions involving social actors that comprise the National Health System [Sistema Único de Saúde - SUS] in Bahia. Its main goal is to act as a form of decentralization and specialization of the Brazilian State to provide social services that are more efficient. This study aims to analyze the process of building the EFSFSUS, seeking to realize the creation of a reality giving voice to several possible interpretations by the actors who build the SUS in Bahia. It reflects upon the different discourses that have shaped the institution's creation, and the ones that struggled for its conformation, taking into account the speeches that were not valued in the official documents of the institution. This research is the result of a qualitative research and uses the genealogical analysis strategy proposed by Foucault. This paper intends to extract concepts from an experience that will serve as the reality operators concepts tool to assist in the construction of SUS, in the realization of health as a right of all and duty of the State. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]