Abstract

AUGUSTO, Lia Giraldo da Silva. Health and environmental surveillance: building the theme. Epidemiol. Serv. Saúde [online]. 2003, vol.12, n.4, pp.177-187. ISSN 1679-4974.  http://dx.doi.org/10.5123/S1679-49742003000400002.

The evolution of the epidemiological patterns in Brazil, with increasing incorporation of new diseases resulting from industrialization and urbanization, demands a new model of monitoring with emphasis on health promotion and prevention. This article discusses some basic concepts related to Environmental Health Surveillance in the field of Collective Health, and offers support to build actions in the scope of the Brazilian National Unified Health System (SUS). The importance of the distinct disciplines to the process of global understanding of the problematic social environment relationship in the way of interdisciplinarity is emphasized. The subject was developed in landmark accomplishments of Collective Health, mainly when relating the social, environment and productive elements in the systems of study of causality in health in relation to a complex system. A recent bibliography served to introduce critical elements to the usually accepted concepts, such as Environment, Sustainable Development, Risk, Cause, Context and Interdisciplinarity. The construction of an Environmental Health Surveillance system requires another capable model to organize the actions of health promotion and prevention, to improve the quality of health services as a whole and to offer subsidies for sustainable development policies.

Keywords : environmental surveillance; risk; interdisciplinarity; sustainable development.

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