Health promotion and biomedicalization: a critical review of the literature on HIV testing (2010-2029)

Abstract

The current global and Brazilian guidelines to control HIV/AIDS have shown a strong biomedical emphasis, stressing the importance of expanding access to HIV testing, aiming at early diagnosis, referral for treatment, and reduction of viral load. By critically reviewing the national and international literature, we aimed to identify how academic production on HIV testing among trans women/travestis, gay men/other MSM, and cis women sex workers that has been published from 2010 to 2019 has conceived health promotion. Findings confirm the trend of biomedicalization in the conception and operationalization of HIV testing programs and actions and found other uses of the notion of health promotion. The literature on gay men/MSM predominantly use this notion to support strategies to expand access to the test, not differentiating it from to distinguish it from the notion of prevention. The literature on trans women/travestis and sex workers mostly subordinates the HIV test to a broader agenda of debates and reflections on health promotion. Results enable a reflection on how the biomedicalization process reconfigures the meanings and practices associated with prevention and health promotion.