Syndemic: tautology and dichotomy in a new-old concept

Abstract

In the wake of the decade’s most severe pandemic, the term ‘syndemic’ reemerged as an alternative to better designate the nature assumed by COVID-19. The authors who advocate for this concept argue that it gives greater analytical breadth, which allows an understanding of the synergistic interactions between diseases and their social origins. This essay aims to analyze this concept in the light of historical-dialectical materialism. In particular, it dialogues with the Collective Health current devel- oped under the influence of Marxism. Thus, the category of social determination of the health-disease process is called to the debate when its greater breadth is revealed before the syndemic concept. We found that the concept under analysis is tautological and reproduces old dichotomies of the biomedical model while criticizing it.