Abstract

FRANCO-GIRALDO, Álvaro. Public health under discussion. Rev. Fac. Nac. Salud Pública [online]. 2019, vol.37, n.1, pp.15-28. ISSN 0120-386X.  https://doi.org/10.17533/udea.rfnsp.v37n1a04.

This reflective essay discusses public health topics such as its epistemic dimension, how it is affected by the local-global territory dialectics, its relationship with social medicine in Latin America, its pretense of scientificity, its stance regarding the issue of determination and social determinants of health, its place in the contradiction between subject and structure and how it is affected by the tension of cognitive capitalism and the university. The text discusses the failure of healthcare policies and global public policies, and proposes the academic and political construction of a transdisciplinarity based on the theories of complexity, interaction with other fields of knowledge and various actors. Likewise, it defends recovering interculturality and leans towards a theoretical debate, alongside social and human sciences, on common topics and problems. Similarly, it acknowledges methodological pluralism, thus validating the instruments of population epidemiology and other forms of it as well as the advancements in the field of qualitative research and the understanding of intersubjectivities. Finally, the paper recommends that healthcare professionals perceive public health as an option with a sense of life.

Keywords : public health; capitalism; social medicine; politics; State; globalization.

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