Health, environment and territory: a necessary discussion in health training

Abstract

Environmental degradation has been affecting ecosystems and causing the imbalance of various life forms that comprise natural diversity, and consequently produce risks and hazards to public health. Therefore, an attempt was made to examine interdisciplinary health and environmental health in public undergraduate institutions of higher education involving the application of the concept of territory. It adopted qualitative research with a descriptive and exploratory approach to undergraduate courses in health of the seventeen undergraduate programs in health in the four state universities of the State of Bahia. It was detected that despite curriculum changes in undergraduate courses in health over the past few years, the model of professional training has focused on technical and non-preventive practices, which highlights a gap in the relationship between health/environment and the protection of life. This causes the undergraduate courses in health to minimize the association between diseases, health and environmental issues, taking into account that such issues should be addressed as a cross-sectional theme in undergraduate health, emphasizing the need for more discussion and better incorporation of environmental issues in the healthcare field.