Sistema Regional de Información
en línea para Revistas Científicas de América Latina,
el Caribe, España y Portugal

The social determination of health and the social determinants of health have been presented as synonyms in a context in which this topic is being revisited. The conception of determination and determinants and the historicity of these theoretical models transcend the academic realm, once we consider the particularity involving public health, collective health, and social medicine, in which science and politics have a close relationship. Through the description of the differences between these two terms, our aim in this essay was to bring back, in theory, the elaboration of the social determination of health, highlighting its relationship with the knowledge produced in Latin America and its repercussions in Brazil, as well as the influences of the scientific and epistemological paradigms, the set of theories, and the projects that are in dispute in this field. In order to encompass the academic and political dimensions contained in the theoretical models, we sought the help of authors that move among different fields of knowledge. Without the intention of covering all of the points of observation that our incursion provided, we present a summary of our conception of the theoretical model of the social determinants of health and, chiefly, of the social determination of health, which we suggest should be divided into two categories, structural determination and structural-relational determination, in order to enable a better observation of the theoretical and methodological improvements, by emphasizing complexity epistemologically.

To rescue and systematize the different positions that shaped the path of the construction of the permanent education in health concept, the article aims to review the discussions carried out by the Pan American Health Organization in the period ranging from 1974 to 2002 with regard to health education practices to understand the lines of force, intentionalities, and power games involved in this debate. Documental and bibliographical research was carried out using the conceptual matrix notion as an analytical reference. The results present the elements that comprise these matrices and their respective emergency contexts, which corroborate the existence of two conceptual matrices in the production of the Pan American Health Organization, namely continuing education in health and permanent health education, respectively, from 1974 to 1984 and from 1985 to 2002. It is argued that the expansion and reconfiguration of the conceptual plan provided by the second matrix, largely centered on the pedagogical method, faces limitations that we can correlate not only with the redirection of the institution's agenda, but also with the experience of implementing the National Policy for Permanent Education in Health and the contradictions that marked the path followed by the management of the work of the Unified Health System.

The expression ‘work management in healthcare’ began to be used in Brazil after the 12a National Conference of Health, replacing ‘human resource’. The aim was analyze the meanings attributed to the use of the term ‘work management in healthcare’ based on the Brazilian historical context. This research developed a scoping review in the Lilacs database, between 1990 and 2010. Among 436 eligible studies, 34 were included. These publications presented numerical growth especially after the 3rd National Conference of Work Management and Education in Healthcare at 2006. The content was synthetized in five main topics: conceptualizing of work management in healthcare, policy formulation, and participation of workers in the work process, labor precarization and new challenges. Despite the consensus about the complexity of the expression, distinct aspects are explored by the authors depending of political, social and economic contexts during the construction of thought. The theoretical discussions should support changes on practices of management and on culture of production modeling, but practical changes are scarce, generating a question that was not completely answered: does work management in healthcare represent a simple terminology exchange or paradigm shift?

In order to understand certain effects of the More Doctors Program (Programa Mais Médicos, in Portuguese), we studied the subjectivation processes that occurred in the constitution of the Cuban doctors throughout the revolutionary process triggered ever since the end of the 1950s. To do so, we analyzed many publications, and considered our experiences with these professionals using Michel Foucault’s formulations about how the power-knowledge relationships constitute the individuals, in the connection between political aspects and ethical processes. We demonstrate the role that the public health system has in the Cuban Revolution, identifying the centrality of the doctors in this process; we discuss the moral aspects that have an impact on the ethical constitution of the Cuban doctors, especially the figure of the revolutionary and the practices of solidary internationalism. Lastly, we analyze the recent transformations in that country and their yet undefined consequences for the subjectivation of the Cuban doctors.

This article discusses the relationship between the insertion of youth in the labor market and their passage through middle school. The central argument is that the recent middle education counter-reform will not guarantee universal opportunities for the completion of basic education, rather promote precarious training in public schools and reinforce the precariousness of youth labor. Methodologically, data were analyzed regarding the passage of youth through the schooling process and their insertion in the labor market. As basic primary sources, analyses were made of data provided by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics, in its National Household Sample Survey and Census; of surveys carried out by the Ministry of Labor, specifically data from the General Register of Employed and Unemployed persons and of the Annual Report of Social Information, and of data provided by the Anísio Teixeira National Institute of Educational Studies and Research.

The objective of this essay is to argument the modern individuality is a particular category which mediates through men’s practical action, the relationship between concrete individuals and species-in-itself ( Gattungsmässigkeit ). The paper shows the modern individuality as the rational egoism exercitation, specially into economic categories. This tendential exercitation cohabits with countertendencies, which allows apprehend the concrete individuality in a constant tensioned putting with modern individuality tendencies as an effect of economic compulsion which rules the present sociability.

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We analyzed the training of health care professional for the care of women in instances of sexual violence in two Brazilian state capitals, in a qualitative study with 140 professionals of different categories working in 18 health care institutions in the cities of Fortaleza and Rio de Janeiro. Semi-structured interviews were performed, and the empirical material was analyzed according to the content analysis technique. Gaps in the training of the professionals due to an insufficient approach of this topic during the undergraduate studies in the field of health were observed in both municipalities. The weakness of the professional training for this kind of practice was reinforced by gaps in the training actions. In the city of Rio de Janeiro, these actions were more frequent and continuous. The inclusion of this topic in the professional training, the expansion of training processes, and the continuing education of the health care teams in the services are important. Such measures will make viable a critical understanding of this phenomenon, contributing to the implementation of diverse interventions.