Culture circles on social and environmental determinants: action research with community health agents of Paraisópolis, SP.

Objectives: To identify social and environmental determinants of health in the perception of community health agents, and to develop a health education process to contribute to the improvement of health promotion.

Methods: A qualitative action research based on Freire's Research Itinerary (Culture Circles), using talking maps and integrated panels, with 29 community health agents of the Paraisópolis II Basic Health Unit, in the community of Paraisópolis, Sao Paulo. The analysis of the results was carried out by the Method of Triangulation.

Shared Participatory Research Principles and Methodologies: Perspectives from the USA and Brazil-45 Years after Paulo Freire's "Pedagogy of the Oppressed".

The trajectory of participation in health research by community social actors worldwide has been built on a history of community participation from the Ottawa Charter Health Promotion call for community mobilization, to the emancipatory educational philosophy of Paulo Freire, to social movements and organizing for health and social justice. This paper builds on this history to expand our global knowledge about community participation in research through a dialogue between experiences and contexts in two prominent countries in this approach; the United States and Brazil. We first focus on differences in political and scientific contexts, financing, and academic perspectives and then present how, despite these differences, similarities exist in values and collaborative methodologies aimed at engaging community partners in democratizing science and knowledge construction.

[The applicability of the ecology of knowledge in health and environment and its permeability in the scientific literature].

A new epistemology makes it imperative for different knowledge to be incorporated in order to understand and interact with the complex problems that affect humanity, especially those associated with health and the environment. The study aims to explore the applicability of the ecology of knowledge in the midst of traditional scientific literature, focusing on participatory approaches to questions of health and the environment. The methodology involved a bibliographic review of an international scientific database, with the inclusion of 170 papers that were classified by their participatory approaches as: timely; multi-tool; and ongoing/cyclic.

Challenges to participation in action research.

In order to understand and take action in complex health and environmental issues, we intend to analyse the conditions that are needed for those at risk to participate in research and intervention projects. In this study, we describe and discuss an action research experience carried out with an indigenous community in the Brazilian Amazon that suffers from serious sanitary problems, where cultural aspects in the relationship with the environment and health are particularly relevant. Different types of tools were deployed and combined and were subsequently classified according to their dialectic efficacy and ability to both conduct and steer the research and encourage the participation of social actors within a process of feedback.

[Exposure to contaminated water: perceptions and practices in a neighborhood in the city of Manaus, Brazil].

Objective: To investigate the modes of water supply and the perception concerning the problems caused by this water among residents of a neighborhood without public supply of water, settled in an area previously used as a garbage dump in the city of Manaus, Brazil.

Methods: One hundred and sixty-two semi-structured household interviews were conducted. In addition, a focal group with teachers from a local public school and a meeting with residents were held.

[Sanitary and socio-environmental conditions in the Iauaretê indigenous area, São Gabriel da Cachoeira, Amazonas State, Brazil].

Objective: To describe sanitary, social and environmental conditions that are significant for health of residents in the Iauaretê Indigenous Area in Brazilian Amazonia, notable for its population concentration.

Method: Qualitative and quantitative methodologies were used, with the action research method deployed mainly for qualitative approaches, through community meetings with tribespeople and researchers in the villages constituting the hub of the Area. Talking maps were prepared and interviews were conducted, together with studies of solid wastes disposal techniques, in addition to locating, sampling and analyzing the quality of water used for human consumption, in parallel to the use of geo-referencing techniques.