Carta dos editores

Abstract

Caribbean), we are pleased to offer this supplement to volume 9 of História, Ciências, Saúde Manguinhos, dedicated in its entirety to the history of health and medicine in this region of the world. This special issue comprises some of the best papers from the symposium on Science, Health, and Power in Latin America and the Caribbean, and from other important symposiums as well, part of the 12 th International Congress of the History of Science, held in Mexico City in July 2001. All articles were subject to double-blind peer review and comments by guest editors, indispensable to ensuring the quality and impartiality of scientific periodicals. The history of health and medicine is crucial not only to social history but also to public health in our region. Historical studies can help us establish identities and fashion a commitment to and understanding of the origin and evolution of current issues, as they can also serve to elucidate the complex processes of negotiation, fragmentation, and discontinuity generated within the arena of health and disease. This history can help us incorporate a long-term social perspective on the training and activities of health professionals, transcending traditional biomedical education and possibly offering suggestions on Latin America and the Caribbeans major challenges and on the areas outlook for collective health and social medicine. All aspects of Latin Americas more recent health-care agenda should also be the object of historical analyses, focused especially on national health policies, campaigns to control and eradicate disease, the role of international and intergovernmental bodies, primary health care, health promotion the so-called emergence and re-emergence of infecto-contagious diseases, and health sector reforms. As an integral part of social history, the history of health affords a vital framework where we can endeavor to understand little-studied features of our countries, such as interactions between public health processes and social, cultural, economic, and political contexts; continuity and change in public health and the living conditions of urban and rural populations; relations between the State and the various social and ethnic groups active within the public health fields; and relations between health, disease, and the processes of state and nation building. A social history of health can shed light on relations between the State, health, and society in Latin America and the Caribbean so that comparisons can be made and similarities, differences, and unique features can be identified. It also lets us situate Latin Americas historical experience within the international context and establish a more consistent dialog with the growing work in the social history of health and disease currently underway elsewhere around the globe. The history of health provides a critical perspective for new areas of interest in history and the social sciences, such as gender, race, and nationalism; tensions between curative practices and social discourses; the legacies of post-c...