Our mission To publish scientific knowledge at the interface between the Social and Human Sciences and Public/Collective Health, embracing the epistemic, ontological, thematic, theoretical, and methodological pluralities that characterize the field; approaches that understand health as a social, historical, and political phenomenon; and critical, situated debates on inequalities, diversity, and struggles for rights. <p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 25px; margin: 20px 0px; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: 'Noto Serif', -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'Segoe UI', Roboto, Oxygen-Sans, Ubuntu, Cantarell, 'Helvetica Neue', sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: #ffffff; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;">Journal's website on the SciELO portal: https://www.scielo.br/j/sausoc/ <p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 25px; margin: 20px 0px; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.87); font-family: 'Noto Serif', -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'Segoe UI', Roboto, Oxygen-Sans, Ubuntu, Cantarell, 'Helvetica Neue', sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: #ffffff; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;">Journal's submission articles website: https://mc04.manuscriptcentral.com/sausoc-scielo Print version ISSN 0104-1290 On-line version ISSN 1984-0470
Universidade de São Paulo. Faculdade de Saúde Pública
Generation, presence, and learning in the kitchen
In this article, I discuss processes of culinary learning from a generational and relational perspective, drawing on ethnographic research conducted in collective and domestic kitchens with Black residents of São Paulo. I aim to understand how culinary knowledge is learned, developed, and extended through relationships between apprentices and skilled practitioners, both within and beyond the home. Engaging with the notions of generation and presence, I question the emphasis in the culinary skills literature on the individual and propose two conceptual shifts: first, expanding the notion of culinary skill from an individual technical competence to a relational practice; second, rethinking generation not as a fixed age-based block but as an ongoing process. I argue that learning to cook also involves developing the ability to remain in attentive presence—with foods, with the temporalities of culinary processes, with what unfolds in the kitchen, and with other people. Finally, I suggest that culinary knowledge is not transmitted between generational blocks but is continuously extended among apprentices and skilled practitioners who meet in the shared practice of cooking.
Dossier – Black Knowledge in Health and Nutrition
Generation; Cooking Skills; Culinary Learning; Presence; Black Population.
Copyright (c) 2026 Revista Saúde Sociedade https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Adding alcohol as a strategy to destroy the mental health of black people: from colonization to the present day
This study sought to identify the relationship between colonization, racism, and alcohol addiction in the Black community from a historical perspective, and its repercussions on mental health in contemporary times. This is an essay. African peoples have always consumed alcohol, but European colonization introduced them to distilled spirits, which were used to destabilize kingdoms, usurp lands, and purchase enslaved Black people. During slavery in Brazil, alcohol was also used as a tool of control. Black people were encouraged to drink cachaça in excess in order to control the risk of rebellion. After abolition, Black people used alcohol as an escape from exhaustion, hunger, and a hostile environment. The stigma of drunkenness was associated with Black skin, especially at a time when psychiatric theories of racial deterioration due to alcohol abuse were spreading. In contemporary times, persistent exposure to racism continues to produce intense mental suffering, related to increased alcohol consumption. In mental health, it is necessary to analyze the historical roots of problematic alcohol consumption in the black population, recognize the impact of racism as a social determinant of health, and invest in health policies to combat the oppression that continues to mark the lives of this population in Brazil.
Alcohol Abuse; Black Population; Coloniality; Historical Perspective; Mental Health.
Sacred Jurema and Public Health: Decolonial Approaches in the Family Health Strategy
Decoloniality challenges the colonial/modern order and the hegemonic Eurocentric model of knowledge and healthcare, proposing new ways of thinking about health production. The traditional medicine of Jurema Sagrada, deeply rooted in Indigenous and Afro-Brazilian knowledge and present in Northeastern Brazil, integrates body, mind, and spirit through rituals, medicinal plants, and holistic healing practices. Recognizing Jurema Sagrada in public health entails a dialogue between different epistemologies and care approaches, promoting an inclusive and decolonized perspective. This theoretical essay explores key concepts of decoloniality in science and health, the traditional care practices of Jurema Sagrada, and the possibilities for integrating these knowledge systems into the Brazilian Unified Health System (SUS) and the Family Health Strategy (FHS). Valuing these ancestral practices challenges the hegemony of biomedical knowledge and proposes broader, integrative, and culturally sensitive care. Emphasis is placed on the need to make Jurema terreiros visible as health-producing spaces in communities, strengthening decolonial pathways of care and expanding the plurality of knowledge in the field of Public Health (PH).
Jurema Sagrada; Medicina Tradicional; Decolonialidade; Saúde da Família.
Denaturalizing to care: the role of the Social and Human Sciences in addressing contemporary challenges to Public Health
This essay reflects on contemporary challenges in Public Health from the perspective of the Social and Human Sciences (SHS). Engaging with the theme of the symposium that celebrated the journal’s trajectory, this paper argues that the SHS offer fundamental contributions by denaturalizing social health inequalities, promoting the production of situated knowledge alongside marginalized populations (including women, Black and Indigenous peoples, and LGBTI+ individuals), and forging interdisciplinary alliances with social movements. By bridging social psychology, human rights, and diversity, the essay champions intersectionality as an indispensable analytical tool. Furthermore, it reaffirms the political and ethical nature of care—a vital element in addressing ongoing health, socio-environmental, and political crises.Social Sciences; Public Health; Intersectionality; Human Rights; Diversity.
Social Sciences; Public Health; Intersectionality; Human Rights; Diversity.
Towards a paradigm of humanity as a tool for producing comprehensive care in Primary Health Care
As the main entry point to Brazil’s Unified Health System (SUS), Primary Health Care (PHC) is positioned as a privileged locus for ensuring health as a right for all Brazilians, by operationalizing the principles of universality, comprehensiveness, and equity. In striving to provide care that is truly comprehensive, context-sensitive, and capable of understanding the diverse processes of health and illness, PHC has sought to implement the biopsychosocial paradigm in place of the biomedical model. Forged within modernity/coloniality and the myth of Brazilian racial democracy, both the biomedical and biopsychosocial paradigms fail to recognize race as central to the construction of subjectivity and socialization, and to the role of racism — intersecting with other social markers of difference — in the processes of health, illness, and care. This article presents the paradigm of humanity as a tool capable of producing care that is deuniversalized, contextualized, attentive to health and illness processes, and oriented toward emancipation and well-being. This paradigm, co-produced by Black lesbian women, challenges the notion of humanity fabricated by modernity, which considers the white subject as human while dehumanizing Black and Indigenous peoples. It points toward pathways for a clinical practice that acknowledges the socio-racial diversity of illness and proposes care practices that break with the dehumanizing logic imposed by coloniality.
Dossier Anti-racist actions in Primary Health Care: a challenge for ensuring equity
Racism and Health, Intersecionality, Lesbian Health, Coloniality and Health, Primary health care, Black population health.
Access pathways to self-managed abortion in a Central American country with a total abortion ban
Restrictive laws, limited services and stigma shape access to abortion in Central America. This qualitative study examined pathways to access information and medicationinduced abortion in a country with a total abortion ban. We recruited participants through local accompaniers and international websites that advise on safe abortions, conducting 13 in-depth interviews with women who had aborted using misoprostol. The participants reported difficulties accessing accurate information, medications and support, as well as fear of criminalization and stigma. In addition to searching on the Internet, they relied on personal contacts, notably “feminist friends”, who provided trusted support. Those who interacted with the formal health system reported obstetric violence and criminalization threats. In this context, access to abortion depends on personal networks to a large extent, rendering accurate information and abortion accompaniment essential.
Self-Managed Abortion; Medication Abortion; Accompaniment; Access to Abortion; Central America.
Mental health and gender: the digital platformization of educationin question
It is a notable fact that Brazil ranks among the most anxious countries in the world, and that the number of work absences justified by burnout has been increasing. In addition, the precarization of work driven by digital platformization has also intensified. At the intersection of these two phenomena, professions that are already feminized reveal the gender bias of this process, such as elementary school teachers, who face a growing number of cases of psychological distress within this occupational group. This article is situated within the field of studies on the relationship between the State and the market in the area of mental health. Its focus is on incorporating the labor variable in order to understand psychological distress, specifically among basic education teachers. Based on a literature review, we contextualize recent labor changes associated with the digital platformization of education in order to examine psychological distress linked to the sphere of work.
Dossier - Gender, the market, and mental health
Psychological Distress; Gender; Digital Platformization of Education; State; Market.
Epistemological shifts and repositionings of the Social and Human Sciences in the field of Public Health
Based on the title of this article, which was proposed for presentation at the Health and Society 30+ Symposium in August 2025, this work takes the form of an essay and is organized into four sections: a brief introduction detailing the issues to be discussed considering the contemporary context; a summary of the scientific production published by Health and Society over the last 30 years, comparing it with the trajectory of the Social and Human Sciences in Health and Public/Collective Health; some questions about the Social and Human Sciences in Health in the context of the field of Public/Collective Health with an emphasis on the health object, specifically around the themes of interdisciplinarity, the Statesociety relationship, and the contemporary subject; and a very brief final considerations.
Health; Social Sciences; Theory-object; Interdisciplinarity; Contemporary.
Affliction and its rescues: neuronarratives, reintegration, and minimal rituals
This article examines the contemporary hegemony of neuronarratives as a regime for managing affliction characterized by containment without full reintegration. Drawing on the articulation of phenomenology, medical anthropology, and social theory, it proposes a topology of affliction that distinguishes among situated suffering, bodily event, and affliction as a lifeworld. From this perspective, the article examines how neuronarratives, by locating distress within the individual and particularly in the brain, enable its technical and clinical management. However, by detaching the lived body from the biological body, they constrain the possibilities for social and symbolic elaboration of experience. The article engages with Ernesto de Martino’s notion of the crisis of presence to show that contemporary affliction unfolds in contexts where collective devices of rescue have lost their efficacy. In this setting, neurosocialities and minimal rituals emerge as fragmentary responses aimed at producing reintegration, that is, recognition and habitability, where clinical practice primarily offers functional containment.
Neuronarratives; Affliction; Reintegration; Neurosocialities; Minimal Rituals.
The “Overwhelm Effect”: a comprehensive analysis of pediatric healthcare workers’ experiences during the COVID-19 syndemic. Beyond burnout
The COVID-19 syndemic has had unequal effects on populations worldwide and has deepened pre-existing inequities in health services. This article analyzes the experiences of public health professionals in pediatrics in the southeastern region of Greater Buenos Aires (Argentina), focusing on the tensions that transformed healthcare delivery, changes in the work environment and well-being, and the implications for the region’s future. Data collection was conducted through a retrospective survey in 2022, involving 74 professionals (from nursing, medicine, and administration) who provide care to pediatric populations in public healthcare facilities. The results highlight the deepening of structural barriers to accessing public health services, a lack of institutional support for healthcare workers, lasting impacts on their well-being, and changes in their daily habits and concerns. From this analysis emerges the phenomenon referred to as the “Efecto Agobio” (“Overwhelm Effect”), which differs from burnout in that it is a collective rather than an individual experience. It is characterized by a widespread sense of discouragement with negative consequences for public health management. The conclusions aim to provide evidence on this phenomenon and contribute to the development of more sensitive and sustainable health strategies, grounded in the lessons learned from the syndemic.
Syndemic; COVID-19; Argentina; Healthcare Workers; Pediatrics.
Network of medicinal mahiruana users in Ceará: a fight for regulation
Since ancient times, the Cannabis sativa has been present in the historical records of several societies around the world. The drug prohibition movement was responsible for criminalizing its use in Brazil. In response to scientific advances, groups of users are organizing politically to ensure access to cannabis therapy. The objective of this research is to analyze the formation of the network that seeks therapeutic access to the plant in the state of Ceará. This study included the participation of six people, two women and four men, who form a network of medicinal marijuana users in Ceará. The data were produced through convenience sampling. The research presents a social movement seeking to ensure access to medicinal cannabis therapy. The data produced indicate that legal prohibition hinders access to treatment, impacting the quality of life of patients and their families. In this sense, it can be inferred that social organization, based on the formation of formal and informal groups and associations, seeks to mitigate the effects produced by the prohibition of products derived from this plant. It is concluded that in the state of Ceará, social networks drive progress in access to the medicinal use of cannabis.
Prohibitionism; User Social Networks; Medicinal Cannabis.
Anti-racist Actions in Primary Health Care: Practices for Confronting Institutional Racism
Institutional racism constitutes one of the main determinants of health inequities in Brazil. Brazil’s Unified Health System (SUS – acronym in Portuguese), while ensuring universal and equitable access to health actions and services, faces significant challenges in guaranteeing equity for historically marginalized groups, such as the Black population. By incorporating the confrontation of institutional racism into its management, care, and monitoring strategies, the Secretariat of Primary Health Care (Saps – acronym in Portuguese) reaffirms the Ministry of Health’s commitment to building a more inclusive and equitable SUS, dedicated to safeguarding the right to health. In this context, this descriptive study conducts a critical analysis of the persistence of racial health inequities within the SUS, as well as the challenges related to the effective operationalization of racial equity policies within the scope of Primary Health Care (PHC). The analysis of the intersectionality among care practices, the principles of the SUS, the National Policy for Comprehensive Health of the Black Population (PNSIPN), and the National Primary Care Policy (PNAB) suggests that consolidating antiracist practices in PHC and in the SUS requires a structural transformation of care, management, and knowledge production, incorporating racial equity as a structuring principle.
The process of formulating the National Policy for Comprehensive Health of the Quilombola population
The Quilombola population comprises one million and three hundred thousand people (0.65% of the Brazilian population), distributed across approximately eight thousand Quilombola communities. The demands of the National Coordination of Articulation of Rural Black Quilombola Communities regarding the need for a Quilombola health policy within the Unified Health System (SUS) resulted in the inclusion of the topic on the agenda, following discussions at the 17th National Health Conference (2023) and after extensive mobilizations by Quilombola social movements around guaranteeing the right to health in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic. This theoretical essay aims to reflect on the stages of the formulation process of the National Policy for Comprehensive Health of the Quilombola Population (PNASQ/SUS). Thus, the reflections are based on the three stages of the formulation process in light of the policy cycle, namely: 1) outlining the problem and seeking solutions through studies of the health situation and workshops with managers, researchers, and civil society; 2) drafting the text of the PNASQ/SUS, implementation instrument, financing, monitoring and evaluation; 3) public consultation. The decisionmaking stage for implementation depends on a political agreement among the Ministry of Health, municipal and state managers.
Health Policy; Quilombola Health; Unified Health System.
Femicides of pregnant women: why do men kill their pregnant partners?
The femicide of pregnant women, although it breaks with the popular imagination that associates pregnancy with a sacred period, is a severe public health problem of great magnitude. This study sought to understand the motivations behind the crimes of femicide of pregnant women. To this end, news items available in newspapers and online portals, published between 2022 and August 2024, were examined, culminating in the analysis of 45 cases of femicide of pregnant women in Brazil. Most of the cases were motivated by the aggressors’ lack of desire to maintain a bond with the women and children. The study also pointed out that, although the media recognizes the cases as related to broader contexts of violence against women, it does not acknowledge the femicide of pregnant women as a structural problem and does not contribute to a better understanding of the issue.
Femicide; Pregnant Women; Intimate Partner Violence.
Gender and mental health in Brazil: diagnoses of anxiety, depression, and other common mental disorders
This article analyzes the persistence of gender bias in the distribution of diagnoses of anxiety, depression, and other common mental disorders in Brazil, from a critical feminist perspective. It aims to understand how gender norms, power relations, and the processes of medicalization of everyday distress contribute to the higher frequency of these diagnoses among women. Methodologically, it adopts a qualitative theoretical-analytical approach is adopted, based on a critical review of the feminist literature in mental health and on the analysis of data from population surveys, administrative records, and institutional documents. The results show that women present a higher prevalence of diagnoses of anxiety and depression, a pattern that persists over time and is not attributable to biological determinants. The analysis links these inequalities to the sexual division of labor, care overload, exposure to gender-based violence, and the psychiatrization of socially produced suffering. The article concludes by highlighting the relevance of collective care strategies—such as peer support groups—as experiences that challenge the predominant biomedical model, and by arguing that public mental health policies should be grounded in the social determinants of distress and be sensitive to gender issues.
Reflections on federal legislation concerning indigenous health in Brazil
This documentary study analyzed the trajectory of federal legislation on Indigenous Health (IH) across different governments and political-partisan periods, identifying processes of construction and dismantling of normative frameworks. Official documents published by federal agencies between 1990 and 2024 were collected from the Federal Legislation Portal and analyzed using the READ strategy. A total of 26 federal legal texts on IH were identified for the period. An association was observed between legislative production and the politicalpartisan orientation of governments, with a higher volume of implementation under administrations guided by agendas generally associated with more inclusive policy approaches. Inferential analysis revealed five thematic cores, with emphasis on legislation concerning positions, functions, allowances, committees, and emergency strategies. Frequency analysis showed that the most recurrent terms indicate a predominant focus on administrative structuring, suggesting that IH remains vulnerable to political discontinuities. Furthermore, legal production is weakly responsive to the demands of Indigenous peoples, thus evidencing a gap between normative frameworks and the effective realization of the right to health.
Palliative care in Primary Care: production of a cartographic body
This study analyzes the possibilities and barriers to implementing palliative care (PC) in Primary Health Care (PHC), using a cartographic qualitative methodology. Conducted in a Basic Health Unit (BHU) in large municipality in Paraná, Brazil, the study adopted the “guide-user” strategy to follow real-life care trajectories. Data were recorded in a Cartographic Diary. Results reveal structural challenges such as limited resources, fragmented healthcare networks, and staff overload, alongside subjective factors influencing professional practices and user access to PC. The lack of articulation across care levels and narrow perceptions of PHC’s role in PC delivery compromise care continuity. However, micro-political practices and singular arrangements highlight PHC’s potential as a space for continuous and humanized care. The study concludes that rethinking palliative care policies and practices is urgent, taking into account the subjectivities and living networks shaped in everyday healthcare services.
Anti-racialism and the war on drugs: the Cracolândia territory constitution and the racial dynamics in the marginalization of the black people
Social discourse turns the black population into a target of the war on drugs. Data indicates that most of the people who frequent the Cracolândia territory are black. In order to reflect on the narratives that make up the territory, especially with regard to racial dynamics, a systematic integrative literature review was carried out in the PubMed, BVS, Scopus, Embase, Web of Science and the Brazilian Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations databases, using the keywords “cracolândia”/“crackland” as the inclusion criteria. Studies were included: if they focused on Cracolândia and the black population; were published from 2005 onwards, in Portuguese or English; and were available via open access. The results, exported to the Rayyan platform, yielded six articles, which were organized into three thematic categories: “War on drugs and the criminalization of black people”, addressing how repressive policies reinforce the marginalization of the black population, perpetuating stigmas and exclusion; “Double social devaluation: race and use”, highlighting the double stigmatization stemming from racism and drug use among black people; and “Policies on drugs and black people in Cracolândia”, highlighting how these policies, by not considering racism, impact this population, perpetuating inequalities. The results reveal a scarcity of studies dealing with race relations and their implications.
Methodologies as milestones in the trajectory of the Social and Human Sciences in Collective Health
This essay offers a critical reflection on the publication trajectory within the Social and Human Sciences in Health (SHSH), focusing specifically on the research methodologies employed. I conduct an non-systematic review of articles published between 1985 and 2025 across five Brazilian Collective Health journals. Bridging my editorial experience with insights from the relevant literature, I outline the primary methodologies identified and discuss how these choices reveal epistemic disputes and knowledge validation processes within the field. The text is structured around ideal-typical constructs, highlighting the most prominent features of each period. I conclude by raising several concerns regarding the future of scientific publishing and the need for a critical renewal of editorial practices in SHSH.
Social determinants or processes of determination? Anthropological reflections based on the experiences of women in the Brazilian Federal District during and after the COVID-19 pandemic
Drawing on anthropological theory and a longitudinal qualitative study, this essay analyzes the social shaping of health, emphasizing its processual and dynamic nature. To this end, it presents different interpretations of the concept of the social determinants of health, contextualizes its emergence within the health field, and discusses contemporary critiques in Collective Health. It foregrounds the experiences of marginalized women in the Federal District during and after the COVID-19 pandemic, showing their agency and reflexivity regarding their living conditions. I argue that this agency and reflexivity demonstrate that living conditions do not operate as mere externalities; rather, they are actively recognized and mediated by the meanings that guide these women’s actions. Thus, countering a deterministic approach to the social determinants of health, this paper proposes understanding these determinants through theoretical frameworks that privilege the processual nature of social practices.
We need to talk about coloniality and racism: a gap in the editorial ecosystem of the Social and Human Sciences in Collective Health
This essay examines how the invisibility of coloniality and racism in scientific journals drives editorial inequity in the Social and Human Sciences in Health. This reflection relies on the analysis of scholarly publishing, guided by two core questions: What has been published on coloniality and racism regarding Black and Indigenous health? In which scientific journals are these articles being published? The findings show that this thematic gap is itself a byproduct of the racism permeating the entire Brazilian editorial ecosystem and its publishing practices. Overcoming this barrier requires greater ethno-racial and regional diversity within editorial boards. We propose anti-racist action plans to actively incorporate narratives from traditional, Roma, favela, riverine, quilombola, and migrant communities, alongside people with disabilities and LGBTQIAPN+ individuals, into editorial processes and published texts.
Amazonia as a critical frontier: epistemological displacements and editorial challenges
This theoretical essay aims to reflect on the contemporary forms of the geopolitics of knowledge within the field of Brazilian Collective Health, with emphasis on the incorporation of the Amazon as a horizon for transforming hierarchies in editorial practices. Conceiving Collective Health as a scientific field shaped by disputes over what can and should be researched, by which methods, and by whom, the text examines how regional, racial, and epistemological hierarchies structure regimes of scientific validation and editorial practices. Engaging with the notions of the coloniality of power, the geopolitics of knowledge, and the dispositif of raciality, it argues that such hierarchies produce a dual peripheralization— territorial and epistemological—that affects knowledge production originating from Brazil’s Northern Region. At the same time, institutional fissures are identified that signal ongoing shifts. The Amazon is thus presented as a critical frontier, not as an exotic object, but as a space of conceptual and practical production capable of challenging and reconfiguring the criteria of legitimacy within the editorial field of Collective Health.
Scientific and Technological Development
The Social and Human Sciences in Health facing contemporary challenges: science, coloniality, whiteness, and epistemic arenas
This essay addresses the contemporary challenges facing the Social and Human Sciences in Health (SHSH). It analyzes how contexts marked by social, health, environmental, political, and epistemic crises—along with intensified scientific production and the emergence of artificial intelligence (AI)— strain disciplinary identities, visibility regimes, knowledge legitimacy and authority, and educational processes. It argues that the SHSH provide the tools to understand and denaturalize structures, yielding situated knowledge that is ethically and politically engaged. Engaging with debates on science, the coloniality of knowledge, whiteness, and epistemicide, the essay posits that modern science has entrenched persistent epistemic hierarchies. When analyzed through the lens of critiques regarding the coloniality of knowledge, scientific racism, and whiteness, epistemic asymmetries emerge not as occasional deviations, but as structural dimensions of science. Engaging with the concepts of epistemic arenas and ontopolitics reveals that health objects are produced through practice, ethically entwining researchers and educators in the creation of the very worlds they investigate and teach. It examines the automation of thought and the widening of epistemic inequalities. By articulating decolonial perspectives, situated epistemologies, and the Latin American concept of sentipensar (feeling-thinking), it suggests that a pluralistic Collective Health demands dismantling privileges, challenging whiteness, and fortifying educational processes committed to cognitive justice and social equity.
Knowledge production in the Social and Human Sciences within public health
This editorial discusses the position of the Social and Human Sciences in Health (SHSH) within the broader field of Public Health. It critically examines the historical inequalities among its constituent subfields and explores how these asymmetries affect the production and circulation of scientific knowledge. We argue that, despite broad recognition of the critical and interdisciplinary value of SHSH, persistent institutional, editorial, and academic constraints continue to hinder its consolidation. Drawing on a survey of journals affiliated with the Public Health Editors Forum of the Brazilian Public Health Association, this text analyzes the editorial circulation of SHSH research. The findings show that this literature is highly concentrated in a few specific journals, revealing persistent bottlenecks in its publication and validation. The article also introduces the commemorative dossier celebrating 30+ years of Saúde e Sociedade, contextualizing the symposium that inspired this collection and summarizing the contributions of the published papers. Reflecting on the journal’s trajectory and on the contemporary challenges facing SHSH within Public Health, we reaffirm the urgent need to strengthen pluralistic, critical editorial spaces committed to epistemological diversity and to the defense of health as a fundamental right.
On anxieties and enthusiasms over 30+ years of Saúde e Sociedade: where do we come from? Where are we? Where do we want to go?
This article maps the trajectory of Saúde e Sociedade through three central questions: where we come from, where we are, and where we want to go. The text begins by briefly tracing the journal’s origins and its foundational roots at the intersection of the Social and Human Sciences and Public/Collective Health, highlighting its early consolidation within the scientific community. Turning to the contemporary landscape, the article examines the journal’s institutional and editorial transition, including a comprehensive revision of its mission. These institutional changes explicitly align the journal’s formal scope with its evolving editorial practice, while reaffirming its commitment to critically analyzing the relationships between health, society, and power. The text also underscores current challenges facing academic journals, including sustainability, internationalization, and shifts in the production and dissemination of knowledge. Finally, we outline the future commitments of Saúde e Sociedade, reaffirming its role as a space for sophisticated dialogue—one attentive to contemporary struggles, committed to defending health as a fundamental right, and open to the diverse perspectives that shape the field.
Gênero, mercado e saúde mental: por uma agenda de pesquisa decolonial
Neste artigo são apresentadas as produções que compõem o dossiê Gênero, Mercado e Saúde Mental, fruto do acúmulo de pesquisas desenvolvidas ao longo dos últimos cinco anos por pesquisadoras e pesquisadores vinculados a uma ampla rede internacional de investigação. O dossiê parte do pressuposto de que a saúde mental não pode ser compreendida exclusivamente a partir de abordagens biomédicas ou individualizantes. Ao contrário, os artigos reunidos evidenciam que sofrimento psíquico, diagnósticos psiquiátricos e consumo de psicofármacos estão profundamente atravessados por relações sociais de poder, desigualdades de gênero, raça e classe, bem como por processos históricos de medicalização e biomedicalização da vida cotidiana.
Editorial – Dossier: Gender, Market, and Mental Health
Why are we so unequal? On the health of the black and indigenous population
The social nature of socio-racial inequality is investigated through the notion of difference, as well as its capacity for reproduction, related to power relations—more specifically to the racial apparatus, a historically and socially instituted mechanism through social institutions.
Editorial - Dossier Anti-racist actions in Primary Health Care: a challenge for ensuring equity
Black women’s health and Primary Health Care: between the coloniality of care, everyday struggles, and confronting racism
This essay, as a result of accumulated research, lived experiences, and critical reflections, analyzes the construction of the social place of Black women, particularly within Primary Health Care (PHC), highlighting how racism, sexism, and class and territorial inequalities contribute to the production of vulnerabilities. Using intersectionality as a theoreticalpolitical tool and a critique of the coloniality of care, the text demonstrates how the universalist logic—based on supposed neutrality—and an insufficiently developed approach to racial equity render the vulnerabilities of these women invisible, along with the impacts on their living conditions, especially in contexts such as the streets, favelas, and incarceration. It questions the effectiveness of approaches that, by failing to consider the multiple layers of oppression, reinforce stereotypes and contribute to the perpetuation of social disadvantages. The essay emphasizes the leadership of Black women in denouncing institutional racism and in creating collective and ancestral care technologies. It underscores the urgency of articulating and mainstreaming public policies, with emphasis on the National Policy for the Comprehensive Health of the Black Population and the National Policy for the Comprehensive Health of Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals, Transvestites, and Transsexuals, highlighting significant ongoing initiatives. It concludes that equitable care requires confronting racism within PHC practices, grounded in Black feminist epistemologies and the valorization of reexistence experiences within the territories.
Experiences of mothers of adolescents with intellectual disabilities: a study on the intersection of race, gender, and social class
The present study aims to discuss the intersection of gender, race, and social class among mothers of adolescents with intellectual disabilities, in order to strengthen the debate on public policies regarding the health actions necessary to ensure equity, by recognizing and making visible the multiple dimensions of vulnerability present in these contexts. This qualitative study conducted was with 12 mothers of adolescents with intellectual disabilities who were receiving care at a specialized outpatient child and adolescent mental health service. Data collection was carried out through in-depth interviews using a semistructured guide. Data analysis was performed using Iramuteq software and Bardin’s Content Analysis. Most women are Black, have low household incomes provided through public policies, and assume full responsibility for raising their children. The results were grouped into four distinct categories: experiences of racism, prejudice, and stigma related to disability and the role of public policies; everyday life narratives; parental relationships, dependency, and future perspectives; and the path to diagnosis. The study found that these mothers face a challenging reality in which mechanisms that sustain oppression are perpetuated in a scenario marked by multiple dimensions of vulnerability.
Urban Regeneration and its Implications for Community Health in Neighborhoods in Southern Chile
Objective: To identify the changes and consequences for the community’s health and well-being after the enforcement of the “Quiero mi Barrio” (I Love my Neighborhood) program in Chile. Materials and Methods: The qualitative study was based on the analysis of the discursive content of the interviews conducted during focus group sessions with 16 leaders who were members of the “Developmental Neighborhood Committee” in Temuco, Chile. Results: After the program’s implementation, it was possible to identify changes in community spaces, such as landfill eradication, the establishment of spaces that promote leisure, and the generation of communal encounter instances, which implied an increase in the usage of neighborhoods’ public spaces for physical activity and neighbor coexistence. Conclusions: The results indicate that this program contributes to infrastructure and social management, strengthening community health in the studied neighborhoods.