A dimensão espacial nos estudos sobre saúde: uma trajetória histórica

Abstract

Focusing on concepts taken from critical geography, this article re-examines the spatial notions that were incorporated by the public health field between the late eighteenth and mid-twentieth centuries. Based on a review and systematization of intellectual production within the field of medical geography, this time span is broken into periods. We begin with a presentation of Finke's work (1792) and then move on to analyze the nineteenth century, when geography and medicine became scientific disciplines. The concept of space as a physical environment, with human action abstracted out, took hold within geography, while the biological-individual paradigm prevailed within the field of medicine. The text discusses the implications of the public health field's decision to embrace the geographic notions of determinism, type of life, and human ecology, and describes the contributions of Max Sorré and Pavlovsky. It also looks at the International Geographical Union's 1952 creation of a Commission on the Medical Geography of Health and illness and analyzes the emergence and coalescence of the 'new geography'.

Análise espacial da ocorrência de dengue e condições de vida na cidade de Nova Iguaçu, Estado do Rio de Janeiro, Brasil

“…Ao tomar o espaço como meio de construção e organização da sociedade humana e de produção da doença, fundem-se noções deterministas da medicina e da geografia, que podem apontar novos elos a serem rompidos na cadeia de transmissão 32 . Essa perspectiva integradora pode ser um instrumental útil para se discutir o contexto social como uma unidade complexa onde fatores sócio-econômicos e estruturais urbanos, em conjunto, geram uma realidade única em cada local, favorecendo ou desfavorecendo a disseminação da dengue.…”

Epidemiology and Place: A Spatial Area for Health Analysis

“…This evolution begins with the idea that space could be reduced to its physical dimensions and cartographic overlapping between landscape and space, becoming synonymous (BOUSQUAT; COHN, 2004). Thereafter, the current understanding of space territory has been developed from human aggregation with the landscape, that is, the understanding of spaces as systems of objects and actions (SANTOS, 2009).…”

Geografia e saúde coletiva no Brasil

“…Geography and epidemiology have always been closely related, and both are part of the central core of knowledge of Public Health (Bousquat;Cohn, 2004). In their origin, both had strong influence from positivism, postulating as truth criteria scientific neutrality and the search for the description of the facts themselves.…”

“…Regarding epidemiology, it emerged with an emphasis on the biological conception of disease, which was reinforced with the advent of microbiology (Bousquat;Cohn, 2004). Since the emergence of these scientific disciplines, at the end of the 19th century, cartography had a prominent position, enabling the analysis of the distribution patterns of diseases in different geographical scales (Rojas;Barcellos, 2014).…”