Homeless population’s health: reflections from the social determination of health

Abstract

This article aims to present reflections about the homeless people’s health, using the social determination of health-disease process concept as an analysis key. This article in essay format was organized in two sections: the first one presents the discussion about this population’s health, indicating to the organization of health services that assist these people, its advances and obstacles; the next section performs an analysis of the health-disease process of the homeless population using the theoretical reference of Collective Health based on the social determination of health concept. The article argues that the biomedical model has been insufficient to think about the health of the homeless population, once it disregards the complexity of this social reality. Understanding the health-disease process as socially determined approaches health as a result of the material conditions of existence of this population, which are conditioned by the form of social production organization in the capitalist production mode. Thus, social determination operates as an important tool to analyze the homeless people’s health from a perspective of totality.