Visibility, stigmatization and territorialization: perceptions about vulnerability in Primary Health Care

Abstract

The aim of this study is to analyze perceptions of workers of Primary Health about the vulnerability. We focused on workers who work in the north of the city of São Paulo, more specifically in the region of Freguesia do Ó / Brasilândia location that are assigned high vulnerability indices, trying to understand how they recognize people and vulnerable situations and the way they perceive its health promotion and vulnerability reduction strategies. The notion of vulnerability has been adopted in Brazil by the Ministry of Health as one of the fundamental objects of intervention of the National Health Promotion Policy (PNPS) (2006), producing profound changes in the way of identify, intervene and prioritize the population, and causing various effects on the practices of workers and users of public health services in the country. We interviewed 14 professionals from the primary care Coordination of the Municipal Health Department and the Health Supervision Technical of the Freguesia do Ó / Brasilândia, in the north of São Paulo. In this study, we highlight three categories addressed by the professionals interviewed: the visibility of population, the dangers of the stigmatization and the relationship with the territorialization. We conclude that the notion of vulnerability arises as a potential instrument for the transformation of health practices, if exercised the active participation of the population in the analysis and the weighting of problems and health needs, permanently questioning the stigmatizing effects and colonizers of these same practices