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
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.
Copyright (c) 2026 Revista Saúde Sociedade https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
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.
Dossier Anti-racist actions in Primary Health Care: a challenge for ensuring equity
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.
Racism and the Production of Care in the Brazilian Unified Health System (SUS): Challenges for Primary Health Care
The struggle of the organized Black movement led to the approval of the National Policy for Comprehensive Health of the Black Population (PNSIPN – acronym in Portuguese) in 2009, a milestone in the recognition of institutional racism within the Unified Health System (SUS – acronym in Portuguese). This article aims to analyze the production of care for the Black population within the context of Primary Health Care (PHC), in the Greater ABC region, considering challenging to the principle of equity and to the implementation of the PNSIPN. This is a qualitative study involving twentyfour semi-structured interviews with managers, social actors, health professionals, and users of the Brazilian SUS. The narratives revealed political and institutional barriers to implementing the PNSIPN, including professionals’ lack of awareness, the absence of race/color data in health information systems, and resistance to recognizing racism as a structuring element of the health-disease process. Drawing on Sueli Carneiro, the study argues that the raciality dispositif selectively activates biopower— deciding who is entitled to “make live” and who is condemned to “let die.” Achieving racial equity within SUS requires acknowledging institutional racism as a determinant of inequities and incorporating antiracist practices in health services. The right to health remains denied to the Black population.
Therapeutic itinerary of women with suicidal ideation and attempts: gender as an analytical category
Women with suicidal ideation and attempts often turn to healthcare services in search of mental health care. However, their therapeutic pathways are shaped by gender-related issues that require further exploration. This study aims to understand the therapeutic itineraries of these women within the Psychosocial Care Network (acronym in Portuguese – RAPS), using gender as an analytical category. It is a qualitative study based on a hermeneutic and dialectical approach. Interviews were conducted with ten women who shared their experiences seeking care during episodes of suicidal ideation and attempts. The findings highlight the diversity of healthcare services accessed and the gender-related dynamics present in these encounters. Additionally, it was observed that the search for care extended beyond institutional healthcare services, contributing to a deeper understanding of how these women redefined the suffering associated with suicidal ideation and attempts. In this sense, analyzing their therapeutic pathways through a gender perspective allowed for a critical examination of barriers, challenges, and care strategies, contributing to the improvement of mental health policies and practices.
Food citizenship: an overview of scientific production and its relationship with constitutive dimensions
Food citizenship represents a theoretical and practical approach that highlights the behavior of actors who support, rather than threaten, more democratic, socially and economically just, and environmentally sustainable food systems. Beyond the social right to food, the expanded concept emphasizes obligations and responsibilities, articulated through eight constitutive dimensions of food citizenship. This article aims to explore the scientific literature published in English on the topic in recent years and to identify how these constitutive dimensions have been addressed. The study adopted a hybrid systematic-narrative approach, including publications from 2017 to 2023, a period delimited based on the theoretical framework proposed by Lozano-Cabedo and Gómez-Benito (2017), which redefines the concept of food citizenship in its expanded formulation. The main keywords identified were food citizenship itself, sustainability, food democracy, food insecurity, and food literacy. All constitutive dimensions are addressed, either as elements associated with the alternativity of the object of study or as direct objects of analysis, with emphasis on the recognition of the right to sufficient, healthy, and quality food; the recognition of all as subjects of citizenship, the manifestation of citizenship in private and public spheres, and the governance of food citizenship.
Hunger and food contamination in artisanal fishing communities affected by the oil spill off the Brazilian coast
This study aimed to understand the experience of hunger among artisanal fishermen and shellfish gatherers in Bahia, Brazil, affected by the oil spill off the Brazilian coast in 2019. This analyticaldescriptive study with a qualitative approach analyzed 10 individual interviews conducted in October 2021 with artisanal fisherwomen and shellfish gatherers in light of Hans-Georg Gadamer’s (2015) hermeneutic perspective. Categories of analysis emerged that dealt with the individual and collective experience of living and working in an environment contaminated by oil and the feelings of fear and doubt arising from the experience of hunger in everyday life, with the consumption of fish and shellfish that taste and smell like oil. This study breaks new ground by proposing an analysis of hunger in the context of this disaster and reinforces the voice and struggle of female fishing workers who felt mobilized to speak out about the right to eat uncontaminated food and have a dignified living and working environment. It also results in reflections on the rapprochement between the ethnographic approach to hunger and ethnotoxicology in situations of major disasters, the understanding of which becomes necessary to overcome the inertia of the state and the lack of protective public policies, especially with the increase in environmental disasters on a larger scale.
Philosophy of Pharmaceutical Care and its operationalization in the neoliberal reality: critical reflections based on Paulo Freire’s theories
This qualitative study critically reflects on Pharmaceutical Care based on Paulo Freire’s theories. The methodology used was a combination of the Investigation of Generative Themes and Evocative Autoethnography. Analytical notes collected in a field notebook between December 2020 and July 2024 were analyzed using creative autoethnographic writing. Some contradictions were identified between the philosophy of Pharmaceutical Care and its operationalization in neoliberalism. Is it achievable to fulfill professional social commitment while remaining neutral? Is it possible to develop a truly patient-centered, non-paternalistic, and noncolonial clinical practice? Can evidence-based health be holistic? Is it feasible to engage in dialogue with patients who lack valuable biomedical knowledge within the time and language limits of institutional health? Is Pharmaceutical Care an adequate path for promoting human health in the Anthropocene? Pharmacists are encouraged to identify corporatism embedded in their professional practice, permeate their evidence-based practice with dialogue with patients, and grasp the systemic dimensions of the use of health technologies. It is hoped that the outlined problem-posing will foster conscientization, action, and the being more fully human of healthcare professionals, researchers, educators, students, and patients.