Abstract

ADORNO, Rubens de Camargo Ferreira. Health care and diagnosis as a threat: public policies and homeless people. Etnográfica [online]. 2011, vol.15, n.3, pp.543-567. ISSN 0873-6561.

In this text we discuss issues of the interface between public policy and health care provided to the homeless population, from a survey of this population intended to assess its relationship with tuberculosis control. The contribution of ethnographic research has been used along with other data collection of epidemiological character. Through fragments of ethnographic narratives, we aim to discuss the issue of “social margins” taking as the starting point a duality between sanitary and technical action, and mechanisms of social avoidance. Addressing the issue of tuberculosis control among the homeless means to evoke aspects of the sociability of this social group, its relationship with the institutions, and allows for the clarification of yet a different aspect of social suffering.

Keywords : homeless; public policies; health intervention; social suffering.

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