Knowledge and health care trajectories in damaged population in Mexico: an interdisciplinary approach

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to demonstrate the potentiality of an inter-disciplinary approach in the comprehensive understanding of the health-illness-attention process in Mexican damaged populations, one of them in a rural community in Oaxaca (Charco Redondo) and two communities in Mexico City (Xochimilco and Magdalena Contreras). The experience and knowledge (representations and social practices) are obtained from the perspective of the inhabitants, using a multi-method strategy. Shared theoretical and methodological references are used to review the empirical material acquired in three previous research studies. The inter-disciplinary approach focused on the historical, anthropological and psychosocial reinterpretation of knowledge and the population's trajectory in their search for attention, in order to achieve a broader, more integral understanding of the health-illness process that contributes to the design of policies meant to improve the health conditions of damaged populations. The article ends with some reflections on the scope, constraints and challenges of promoting inter-disciplinary research.