Illness and disability: rural workers' subjective dimensions and social identities

Abstract

This article addresses the interfaces between social determinants of health, life conditions and the health and illness conceptions of residents of a rural community in the south of Brazil. The objective is to investigate and learn about their health needs based on their conceptions of illness and considering social inequalities in the rural community Rincão dos Maia, in Canguçu, state of Rio Grande do Sul. Triangulation of methods was adopted. In the qualitative design, 20 subjects were interviewed. The sample was intentional and illustrative of different life contexts. Results show references to illness as disability or movement restriction, medicine use and work. It is also considered as resulting from daily behavior, losses, expositions to diverse temperatures in the farm field, eating habits, and presence of diseases, usually "metaphorical ones". Despite socioeconomic inequalities, no differences were observed concerning the health and illness conceptions, possibly due to the shared cultural context and the rural worker matrix. The article revealed the relevance of learning about social determinants in health by means of material life conditions and also through the subjective aspects of daily processes, in order to understand the construction of local knowledge and logic.