Geografia da saúde no cruzamento de saberes

Abstract

Scientific EditorTitular Professor, Department of Environmental Health Faculdade de Saude Publica da Universidade de Sao PauloE-mail: lena@usp.brThe dossier of articles in Health Geography is one of the results of the I Congress on the Health Geog -raphy of Portuguese Speaking Countries (Geosaude 2014), which took place in early 2014 at the Universi -dade de Coimbra, Portugal. The topic of the Congress was Health Geography in Knowledge Crossover, with a logic covering multiple dimensions. The Congress brought together researchers from different knowl -edge areas who had contributed to re-directing the health agenda, as the preface to the annals shows. Health Geography is a way of studying health that is both very old and very modern. There are multiple relationships between geography and health condi -tions and disease, involving social, environmental, political, human, behavioral, cultural, historical and biological dimensions. However, throughout history, the emphasis placed on the relationship of space with human health has waxed and waned. In the last few decades, faced with environmental, social and economic crises that impact on health and, consequently, on health care systems, Health Geography has renewed and expanded itself with innovative methods of research and treating data, bringing new reflections and contributing greatly to understanding health and disease conditions from a collective perspective. This contribution, however, goes beyond the panorama of past, current and future collective health; it has taken on a crucial role in health care service planning and organization and making health promoting actions in the territory more efficient, based on real data and actual demand.If Medical Geography (as it was commonly known) was formerly strongly marked by drawing up maps of diseases, today it is much more than maps and diseases. Nowadays, covering more than spatial distribution of diseases, it has come to be known as Health Geography. Maps continue to be its most expressive language, but they are just one re-search stage, important for formulating etiological hypothesis and establishing spatial relationships. The following citation from Rita Barradas Barata, a well-known Brazilian epidemiologist, highlights the importance of the geographic method.The advantage of using geographical spaces as indicators of living conditions means taking the complexity of social organization as a whole, rather than fragmenting it into different variables (Barata, 2012, p. 35). Thus, the use of geo-processing and Geographic Information Systems - GIS, has become popular not only to understand the spatial distribution of health care risks and to make etiological hypotheses but also to deal with them more efficiently in the terri-tory, as they enable health inequalities and inequi-ties there to be identified.The 4 studies in the dossier were selected by the Geosaude 2014 Scientific Committee and the Saude e Sociedade Editorial Committee from the 954 scien -tific studies submitted to the Congress. They portray different foci of current Health Geography and were produced by researchers from Portugal and Brazil.The article