Resumo

UCHOA, Elizabeth; ROZEMBERG, Brani  e  PORTO, Marcelo Firpo de Souza. Between fragmentation and integration: health and quality of life in specific population groups. Inf. Epidemiol. Sus [online]. 2002, vol.11, n.3, pp.115-128. ISSN 0104-1673.  http://dx.doi.org/10.5123/S0104-16732002000300002.

This paper was elaborated to support a broad debate on health and quality of life regarding specific population groups. It presents examples from the authors’ experiences in specific issues of public health, such as: a) medicalization of the rural health experience; b) proposals of intervention in mental health; c) basic sanitation in rural populations; and d) occupational health. The analysis of such examples address the interrelations between science, quality of life, health and environment. It deals with the balance between universal and the particular; between the subject and the object; the articulation between objective and subjective approaches; and the interaction between man and his social, cultural, and environmental context. The examples presented in this paper simultaneously encompass problems from diverse disciplinary fields challenging scientific knowledge fragmentation and its deep divorce from institutional practices and from the population’s real needs, knowledge and experience. The authors reinforce the fragility of reductionism and non-contextualized analysis, in trying to analyse quality of life exclusively through quantification, disregarding how subjectivity is the concept of quality of life. Such concepts, frequently used both by specialists and lay people is marked by imprecision and is still to be discussed in terms of conceptual basis, demanding a constant negotiation of meaning among social actors. The central challenge stressed by the authors is to avoid extremes of relativism, but at the same time to generate analysis grounded in the actual life context, creatively contributing to transformations and broadening of the alternatives for health promotion

Palavras-chave : Subjectivity; Medicalization; Occupational Health; Mental Health.

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