Intersectional framework applied to health: focus on health inequalities regarding diversity and identity

Abstract

The debate about identity and diversity has intensified. Social movements in favor of social justice made the subjects’ agendas and demands visible in the country’s political-social scenario. The political struggle articulated criticisms of power relations that reproduce structural inequalities. Intersectionality, as an analytical tool, was used both in political practice and in theoretical interpretations of social phenomena. The communication aims to present intersectionality as an analytical tool and its contribution to the interpretation of health inequalities, seeking to observe the intersection between class, race and gender in their structural components to Brazilian sociability. The essay is produced through a bibliographical survey across three central themes: 1) Brazilian socio-historical formation; 2) source of intersectional studies and intersectionality; 3) social inequalities in health within the scope of Brazilian public health. Intersectionality emerges in and from the political struggle of black women, gaining visibility on the global agenda from the 1990s onwards. Public and social policies began to appropriate the concept, in Brazil, later. In contemporary times, intersectionality has been used as an analytical tool that assists in the interpretation and intervention in social reality, especially in projects that seek to reduce social inequalities in health. We identified that the social markers of class, race and gender differences reveal structural dimensions of Brazilian sociability and are fundamental for the interpretation of the health-disease process, seeking to contribute to the construction of an agenda that intensifies social justice.