Saúde e Sociedade

Social sciences in undergraduate degree in collective health: perspectives of a decade

2019-07-31T08:59:19-03:00

Teaching social and human sciences in the collective health undergraduate course: between challenges and opportunities for transgressions

2019-07-31T08:59:20-03:00

The implementation, from 2009, of the undergraduate course on collective health (GSC) in Brazil and its progressively dissemination has brought to the surface old epistemological, practical or politicalinstitutional issues, and led to the emergence of others. Above all, it should be noted that this new undergraduate course puts once again in the center of the debate the question of the collective health identity or, rather, the specificities of its objects, actors, knowledge and practices. After all, both the pedagogical projects (student’s profile, curricular structure etc.) as its modus operandi reflect a given conception of the field. This article discusses the singularities and challenges of teaching social and human sciences in the undergraduate course in collective health, considering these elements through the analysis of a particular course or, better said, the sharing of experiences and impressions of the authors that integrate its academic staff. In the first part of the article, arguments are presented in defense of the emancipatory formation and multiuniversity knowledge, supported by the dialogue with Boaventura de Souza Santos. It is considered that such perspectives are especially welcome in undergraduate collective health, which has proved to be a useful space for experimenting new ways of acting in education and health.

Current dilemmas of Brazilian society through the lenses of anthropology: an experience report in a discipline from the UFRJ Collective Health Graduation Course

2019-07-31T08:59:22-03:00

The Brazilian anthropology has focused on multiculturalism, social diversity and economic inequality in the country. Anthropological studies on these issues have greatly contributed to inserting it into broader debates about Brazilian social problems. This article deals with a report taken from two semesters teaching experience of the Integrated Activities of Collective Health II discipline for second period bachelor’s degree students of the graduate course in collective health of Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro. The discipline aims at discussing emerging social problems in Brazilian society such as racism, religious intolerance, health of the transsexual population and domestic violence. Through conversations with activists and meetings in militance sites, students engage in participant observation and know their struggles and demands. Introducing important concepts to anthropology, such as ethnocentrism, relativism and social movements, it is intended to stimulate a critical reflection on contemporary social dilemmas in the students. The debates, reports and experiences exchanges emerged during the discipline course reveal that anthropology has a lot to contribute to a more dialogical formation and action of these future public health workers among the population of whom they will take care, besides favoring a more applied understanding on the impact of the social inequalities on the health-disease process.

Culture and care: challenges of teaching Anthropology in Public Health undergraduate studies

2019-07-31T08:59:24-03:00

After 10 years of activity in the field of graduation in Public Health, changes in the profile of university students in public universities and the public inclusion policies and recent approval of curricular guidelines, it is necessary to reflect on how teaching Social and Human Sciences in Health has been accomplished in undergraduate courses, addressing the dilemmas and possibilities of existence. This essay analyzes the challenge of teaching Anthropology in the Public Health Bachelor course of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), raising questions about the curricular guidelines putting into debate daily life and practice of forming sanitarians. The analyses depart from daily experience in classrooms with first semester students, who demand from the beginning to compose the hybrid set of knowledge and practices in order to situate themselves between the reflexive and the practical poles as well as between praxis and theory. This allows for developing strategies that move towards a posture implied in the production of social thought in health and its practices. The analyses also cover the inseparable activities of teaching, research and extension that take place in daily classes, and their different learning fields, wherein the construction of knowledge is based on the intersubjectivity of relations, thus indicating that no one becomes devoid of knowledge and experience.

The importance of teaching gender theory in undergraduate Public Health education: a necessary intersection

2019-07-31T08:59:26-03:00

The objective of this study is to reflect, based on our experience as teachers of the undergraduate course in Public Health of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, on the teaching of gender issues for students under professional training in the health field. By accepting the challenge proposed in this dossier, we sought to analyze how this bachelor’s degree—interdisciplinary by nature— has been explored daily and in a practical manner by social sciences, particularly by theories that approach the genre as an analytical category and an important conceptual tool for a critical and political understanding of social reality. We believe that such learning is essential for a more engaged action with social inequalities (class, race/ethnicity, gender) as future sanitarians or health researchers, in order to awaken students’ interest and sensibility to the subject. Based on the connection between their own daily experiences as young people, women and men, with distinct ethnic and racial backgrounds, class affiliation and religious inclusion, we have witnessed a process of personal and professional maturity in our students, which proves us the fecundity of teaching in this manner.

What can the supervised internships in/on collective health tell us?

2019-07-31T08:59:27-03:00

In 2018, ten years after undergraduate courses in collective health have begun being offered in Brazil, there has been much discussion about the health worker’s performance in the work environment and their role among the various historically recognized health professions. Many of the possible actions are being developed in the obligatory internships present in the universities’ curricula. From this point, we understand that the internships can be seen as favorable places for the analysis of the profile of the public health workers who are graduating and the way in which the different areas that are part of collective health establish the necessary dialogue to form the desired profile, eminently multidisciplinary. Based on the authors’ experiences in the supervision of internships in collective health, the article will discuss the conflicts between the field’s areas during the establishment of the professional practice. In which ways do its lenses shape the field and the perspectives borne in practice environments? In this sense, inspired by the classic Argonauts of the Western Pacific, by Malinowski, we aim at reflecting on the public health workers’ role, what it entails and how it is performed, as well as about what workers say and think about what they do. Finally, we discuss the practice of Collective Health itself.

Bureaucratic state and health management training from a historical perspective: similarities and differences between Brazil and Spain

2019-07-31T08:59:19-03:00

The article described the historical context of health management training in Brazil and aimed at identifying similarities and differences between this training in Brazil and Spain, using qualitative approach and comparative method. Data sources included the scientific literature, official documents orienting interventions in health managementtraining, and semi-structured interviews. Interviews were conducted with managers selected on the basis of currently occupying or having occupied management positions, besides experience and participation in shaping policies in health, totaling four managers in Brazil and six in Spain. Based on thematic content analysis, the results were related to the category of “institutionality” according to the following themes: health and education policy, management training policy, and professionalization. A common element was that Brazil and Spain both adopt health protection as a civic right through universal public health systems. The most significant difference relates to population coverage, nearly complete in Spain in the late 1990s. The study showed the lack of a national training policy for managers in both countries and that such a policy is essential for professionalization in health management. Although the theme of professionalization exists in Brazil, in Spain it has distinct institutional characteristics, having achieved importantrecent progress.

The evaluation of primary health care in Brazil: an analysis of the scientific production between 2007 and 2017

2019-07-31T08:59:21-03:00

This bibliographic study aims to analyze evaluation studies of primary health care (PHC) in Brazil, focusing on the methodological design adopted and some key evaluation features. We searched the Scientific Electronic Library Online, the Scientific Journals Portal of the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES), the Latin American and Caribbean Center on Health Sciences Information (LILACS) database and the Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System Online (MEDLINE), using a structured vocabulary search and selecting articles published between 2007 and 2017 that addressed the evaluation of Brazilian PHC services. Forty-one articles were selected by analyzing the following characteristics, among others: year of publication, article modality, PHC service investigated, methodological design, evaluation characteristics and evaluation outcome and potential. Of these 41 studies, the majority (86.8%) originated in field research conducted exclusively in Family Health Units (48.9%). Methodologically, most studies were quantitative; and the Primary Care Assessment Tool was the most used instrument. We also found that Brazilian studies on PHC evaluation reflected the national historical-political structuring of PHC, and for the most part, they reported quality evaluation research. Our review presents the national panorama on PHC evaluation, highlighting the field’s conceptual and practical pluralism, but also its limitations and challenges.

Public Prosecutor’s Office, Municipal Health Councils and practices of interinstitutional dialogue

2019-07-31T08:59:23-03:00

This study aims to analyze the relationship between the Public Prosecutor’s Office and the Municipal Health Councils (CMS), reflecting on how that institution can contribute to the effectiveness of the social control exercised in the Brazilian Brazilian National Health System (SUS) in the state of Maranhão, Brazil. A qualitative method, divided into documentary research and semi-structured interviews, was used. Prosecutors and health counselors working directly with the CMS of a health region in that state participated in this study. Results showed the SUS institutional control carried out by the Public Prosecutor’s Office in Maranhão is marked by fragile and irregular practices, despite the possibilities, capacities, and attributions granted by the 1988 Federal Constitution. The CMS researched showed deficiencies and limitations known to the Public Prosecutor’s Office, which has not yet oriented its institutional policy to strengthen social control through interinstitutional dialogue. The democratization and implementation of health policies in the municipalities of the health region researched depend, among other things, on improving the interlocution between the Public Prosecutor’s Office and the CMS. Such dialogue has the potential to qualify and strengthen social control in SUS.

Comprehensiveness and universality of the pharmaceutical assistance in times of judicialization of health care

2019-07-31T08:59:25-03:00

Law no. 12,401/2011 and Decree no. 7,508/2011 are celebrated, among other reasons, for introducing new rules for the pharmaceutical assistance policy that would have the potential to streamline the judicialization of health care in Brazil. This study aims to analyze the effects of the universal access to the comprehensive pharmaceutical assistance established by these legislations considering the judicialization of medicines in the state of Minas Gerais from 1999 to 2009. This is a retrospective study that analyzes the legal disputes deferred against Minas Gerais during the period. If the criteria established in 2011 were normalized and respected by the Judiciary in this interval, between 68.84% and 85.77% of the medicines judicialized in Minas Gerais would have been rejected. However, despite having the potential to streamline the judicialization, the legislations do not seem to have influenced the judicial decisions permanently.

PNAISH: an analysis of its educative dimension from the gender perspective

2019-07-31T08:59:27-03:00

This study stemmed from a documental research in the fields of Gender Studies and Cultural Studies, and discusses some of the ways that gender is regarded in the propositions of the PNAISH. To do so, it considers a discursive context in which words such as integrality and equality are repeatedly presented and used to launch educative and care proposals intended for adult men’s health and education. We argue that, at the same time that such amplitude puts certain ways of experiencing masculinity under suspicion, it does not deviates the focus on the healing processes and seems to contribute to impregnate the policy with a utilitarian view, thus individualizing men and blaming them for their detachment from health care services.

“The problem is the vast production of sperm”: conceptions of body in the field of male contraception

2019-07-31T08:59:28-03:00

Since the late 1960s, attempts have been made to produce a reversible male contraceptive with efficacy equivalent to that of the contraceptive pill. To date, this product has not been launched and the justificationsforthisarebasedonpolitical,economic, cultural and biological barriers. The argument of a physiological obstacle has a lot of prominence in these explanations and will be our focus in this article. From the perspective of gender and science studies, we aim to understand how this argument appears incurrent efforts topromote this technology by a prominent actor in the field, the US NGO Male ContraceptionInitiative(MCI).Byusingthedocument analysis technique andthemethodology ofdiscourse analysis, we aim to understand how the male body is represented and, thus, how it is materialized in this process of developing a “male pill”, and to discuss the gendered character of biomedical conceptions and interventions in the field of contraception. We observed thatthe reproductive function of cisgender men is constructed as complex and, in a sense, as resistant to pharmacological interventions. Such characterizationoccursincomparisonwiththefemale cisgender body, which is seen as more accessible for contraception. The traditional association between women and reproduction and men and sex is easily recognized in these perspectives.Since the late 1960s, attempts have been made to produce a reversible male contraceptive with efficacy equivalent to that of the contraceptive pill. To date, this product has not been launched and the justificationsforthisarebasedonpolitical,economic, cultural and biological barriers. The argument of a physiological obstacle has a lot of prominence in these explanations and will be our focus in this article. From the perspective of gender and science studies, we aim to understand how this argument appears incurrent efforts topromote this technology by a prominent actor in the field, the US NGO Male ContraceptionInitiative(MCI).Byusingthedocument analysis technique andthemethodology ofdiscourse analysis, we aim to understand how the male body is represented and, thus, how it is materialized in this process of developing a “male pill”, and to discuss the gendered character of biomedical conceptions and interventions in the field of contraception. We observed thatthe reproductive function of cisgender men is constructed as complex and, in a sense, as resistant to pharmacological interventions. Such characterizationoccursincomparisonwiththefemale cisgender body, which is seen as more accessible for contraception. The traditional association between women and reproduction and men and sex is easily recognized in these perspectives.

Rituals of initiation into pain between men in bodybuilding: ethnography of a fitness center

2019-07-31T08:59:29-03:00

Understanding some social groups through the logic of their rituals reveals, in part, the way of thinking, acting and feeling of the subjects in a specific socioeconomic and cultural context. Thus, this study aimed to analyze and discuss how masculinity is exercised in bodybuilding, considering rituals of initiation into pain in body practices. Based on the anthropological perspective of symbolic interactionism, this ethnographic study was performed in a small fitness center located in a low-income neighborhood in the western of the city of Rio de Janeiro for one year. The data showed the plurality and the dynamics of identity constructions between men determine how the diversity of masculinities interferes in the modes of conceiving or taking care of their own body as well as in the engagement in physical exercises. These empirical elements contribute to thinking not only about the intervention of the physical education professionals, but also about the practices of other health professionals with their male public.

Conversations between women during cytopathological exam

2019-07-31T08:59:30-03:00

This article is about conversations between nurses and women, during gynecological consultations for cytopathological examination. This is a qualitative study that analyzed the conversations made during consultations carried out in three primary health care services of a municipality in the southern Brazil. The analysis of the conversations between nurses and women users of services was based on the theoretical-methodological perspective of speech in interaction, an approach in which the categories are not defined a priori, but they emerge from the interactions among the speakers. The interactional phenomena of interest are analyzed in excerpts from conversations between three nurses and seven of the 26 women who sought primary health care services, transcribed according to the conventions adopted by conversation analysts. Through the membership categorization analysis, one observed in the conversations women identify themselves with the traditional roles of mothers and wives. Nurses and users share the idea that men’s sexuality, based on the biological aspect, is unstoppable and believe they must fulfill spousal obligations, meeting the husbands’ sexual needs, even when they feel discomfort and pain. The findings of this study may help health professionals to reflect critically on their conversational interactions with health service users.

Sexual and reproductive rights of women in a sexual violence situation: what do the managers, professionals and users of reference services say

2019-07-31T08:59:30-03:00

This study aimed to analyze the access to care and the guarantee of sexual and reproductive rights of women in a sexual violence situation, from October to November 2016. from the perspective of managers, professionals and users of reference services. The participants of this study were managers, professionals and women in a VS assisted at a reference center for women’s care and at the Women Police Station. Social constructionism and organization based on thematic analysis were used in the analysis. Three categories emerged: (1) barriers to access to services and to consolidation of public policies; (2) institutional violence as an obstacle to care for women; and (3) advances, setbacks and resistance in the area of attention and public policies aimed at women in a sexual violence situation. The scarcity of human and material resources, the structural precariousness and slowness of police and legal processes, the fragility of the care network, the revictimization of care spaces and the creation of specific laws for the protection of women, dialogue on gender inequalities and human rights, and low participation of women in political decisionmaking spaces were disclosed.

Conflicts and negotiations: an ethnography in the Specialized Police Station for Women

2019-07-31T08:59:31-03:00

The Women Police Stations (Deam) comprise the intersectoral network of services for violence victims. This study aimed to approximate to the reality of a Deam, with women suffering violence and police officers who worked at the unit. Its method is qualitative, consisting of an ethnographic research in a police station in the countryside of São Paulo. The contact between users and police officers showed the women opposed violence, even if, at times, their relationships were antagonistic or troubled. In the different languages between the indispensabilities of victims and officers, while the officers conformed the reports to the law and justice provisions, the users sought integral care regarding public security and health. On the one hand, violence was relational, involved the languages of the kinship and mixed with the daily life; on the other hand, it was a record, a right, an action to be taken. The ethnographic experience showed the limits of a Deam, delineated its difficulties in meeting demands and revealed the anguishes of each voice, but it emerged as a locus for resolution of conflicts and negotiations as well, not being limited to interpreting crimes. Thus, Deam proved to be a place where women talked about themselves and their expectations.

Violence in long-term care facilities for the elderly in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: perceptions of managers and professionals

2019-07-31T08:59:32-03:00

In Brazil, long-term care institutions for the elderly (ILPI) are the main long-term care providers for the elderly in situations of social vulnerability or fragile health. This study sought to analyze the perceptions of care managers and professionals who work in eight ILPI in different regions of Rio de Janeiro state regarding the institutionalization, difficulties of performing recommended care and how to improve these. A qualitative study was carried out that analyzed 38 semi-structured interviews: nine with care managers and 29 with care professionals. A thematic content analysis technique was used in trying to understand in the reports what the main challenges are to guarantee attentive and dignified care in these institutions. Violence has been found to be a major obstacle, which acts contrary to the care advocated. It manifests itself in different ways within the institutional reality: in the form of neglect and abandonment before institutionalization, but also within ILPI themselves. It appears in prejudices against the elderly: in the negative view of old age, in the infantilization and depersonalization of those that receive them, in the macro-political context, and by the absence or non-fulfillment of actions foreseen in public policies of attention to the elderly or in the lack of legislation that attends to their needs. Policies are necessary and need to be implemented. To this end, there should be more investment, especially in the training of professionals, so that long-term care is provided to the elderly in a dignified manner.

Social representations associated with HIV/AIDS in Colombian university students

2019-07-31T08:59:33-03:00

This research aimed to understand the social representations associated with HIV and AIDS in a group of adolescents and university students from Colombia. For this, a qualitative study of phenomenological interpretative design was carried out with 18 university students. The collection techniques used were natural semantic networks (NSN)anddiscussiongroups.Thenarratives showed that there is lack of knowledge about general aspects of HIV and AIDS. They also reported a belief that the risk of contracting HIV relapses only into at-risk groups. In addition, attitudes that denote stigma towards people with the disease were identified. Partners, parents, family and internet were reported as the main agents of socialization about the disease. In conclusion, the need to empower the different socialization agents and to strengthen educational processes from the recognition of the human rights of all people is highlighted.Therefore,itis required an articulated, integral and transversal work of the different agents, not only for the deconstruction of the negative beliefs and attitudes towards the disease, but for the construction of a responsible and healthy sexuality that is centered in the self-care.

The problem of obesity in times of late capitalism: from neoliberal economics to collaborative public policies based on “good living”

2019-07-31T08:59:34-03:00

We study the problem of obesity based on current critical theory, which analyzes the problem posed by late capitalism as its cause. The study uses a critical perspective framed in the Hegelian studies, specifically in one of his central books, The Science of Logic, because in it “the immediate” allows us to visualize how the current ideology operates subjecting the human being and how “the immediate” is one of the principles that dominate capitalism, from which we analyze the issue. The capitalist logics are a reality that create social, political and cultural model in which the human being is trapped, assuming the productive and nutritional stance ofthis systemthatlaunchesus to achieve high levels of production and a food policy based on the business benefit and consumption over the care ethic. We finish it by proposing the construction of public policies focused onwhat has been called “good living” in Latin America.

Obesity: possibilities of developing and care practices

2019-07-31T08:59:35-03:00

Obesity has a multifactorial origin and is quite frequent in Brazil. Eating habits may reflect psychic conflicts, which directly influence care practices, especially diet and physical activity. Obesity expresses ways of being: according to Merleau-Ponty, through the body, man experiences the world, the body carries values and perceptions. To understand which behaviors are experienced as care by obese people, and which implications it has for professional practice in health, we conducted a qualitative study with obese people in grades I and II, seven men and five women. Interviews were recorded, transcribed and later analyzed by the Discourse Analysis Method. The results were divided into 3 categories: (1) decision-making in caring for themselves or not, reveals the moment of initiating care and factors influencing such decision; (2) experience of forms of care: possibilities and difficulties, revealing possibilities and difficulties found in the provision of care; and (3) weight loss as an option or obligation, questioning of motivations to take care of oneself, due to health or to meet aesthetic standards. We conclude that several possibilities of care and experience of obesity exist. We also observe the need for approaches that understand the particularities of this phenomenon.

From prescription to listening: effects of gaining autonomy and medication on health workers

2019-07-31T08:59:35-03:00

The use of psychotropic drugs and rights related to the choice of prescribed treatments has been gaining ground in literature. This article reports aspects of a qualitative research that intervene in 10 health services (primary and secondary care) at two Brazilian cities (Campinas and Amparo, in São Paulo). Following the principle of Brazilian Psychiatric Reform, defending users’ rights to decide about their treatment, we worked with the gaining autonomy and medication (GAM). GAM comes from Canada and proposes to “empower” users regarding the use of drugs in their therapeutic projects. This article aims to evaluate the impact’s perception of the workers moderators of the GAM groups. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with the GAM Group’s moderators before and after the intervention, narratives were constructed under the precepts of Gadamer’s hermeneutics. Workers who experienced the strategy took a more critical role in relation to their clinical practices, and identified, in the horizontal methodology, group and directed to listening for the appreciation of the voice of users, an experience that could promote a more flexible clinic and conducive to the joint construction of actions. GAM’s experimentation in the this research allowed to analyze it in relation to other Brazilian references to the field of collective health such as popular education and person-centered medicine, operating an interesting cultural hybridization.

Pacheco e Silva’s discourse over psychoanalysis: São Paulo, 1926-1979

2019-07-31T08:59:36-03:00

Any Psychology scholar would recognize the extent of existing tensions between Psychoanalysis and Psychiatry. At the same time, the historical perspective shows us interconnections and mutual influences in the theoretical, practical, institutional and political planes between these disciplines. In the case of São Paulo, Antônio Carlos Pacheco e Silva (1898-1988) influenced generations of psychiatrists graduated in Psychiatry schools that he directed between 1923–1968. His history has been studied from different perspectives, with a gap on his stance with regard to Psychoanalysis. This article aims to review this historical gap, being based on the analysis of the psychiatrist’s own papers about Psychoanalysis. We seek to contribute to the understanding of the history of the Psychology field in São Paulo.

Emigration of Brazilian doctors to the United States of America

2019-07-31T08:59:37-03:00

This article considers, initially, the mobility of doctors throughout the world from a bibliographic database collection and identifies the lack of information regarding Brazilian doctors. The aim is to analyze aspects that determine the emigration of Brazilian doctors to the United States of America. The methodology is based on bibliographic research using the keywords brain drain, medical migration, physicians migration, data migration physicians; identification of articles related to the emigration of doctors throughout the world; elaboration and validation of the questionnaire “Emigration Motives”; identification of doctors that emigrated, using the “snowball” technique; sending of the questionnaire by e-mail to the doctors that emigrated to the USA; tabulation of the forwarded answers; Skype interviews aiming at the validation and illustration of the results obtained in the questionnaire. Initially, the doctors choose to emigrate for personal motives (family, professional opportunities, and, in general, absence of language barriers); when established in the USA, they experience a new way of life that makes them stay (better work condition, quality of life, family and general opportunities); external motives become the cause for staying in the USA (insecurity, professional, political and economic scenarios). The conclusion is that an emigrational process of Brazilian doctors to the USA exists and, at first, the reason to emigrate is not well defined; salary is not mentioned as a primary reason; the presence of the family eases the stay in the country; the proficiency in the English language is fundamental and necessary to restart the professional life as a recently graduated in medicine since there isn’t an university degree or medical specialty degree validation.

Waterborne diseases in Argentina and Brazil at the beginning of the 21st century

2019-07-31T08:59:38-03:00

This article aims at analyzing the evolution of mortality from waterborne diseases during the first decade of the 21st century, by age groups, comparing two countries of the southern cone: Argentina and Brazil. The method of years of potential life lost (YPLL) due to death, based on the technique described by Eduardo Arriaga, was used. For all death estimates, moving averages are used to establish two periods: 2000-2002 and 2009- 2011. There is a general trend towards a reduction in mortality because of water-related diseases, both in Argentina and Brazil, with an average reduction rate of years of life lost close to 1% per year. This reduction is not uniform for all diseases related to this group of causes; in fact, there are causes that increase their mortality in the period studied, although most are epidemic outbreaks. On the other hand, the group of causes analyzed impacts more on the most vulnerable ages: those under 1 year old and those over 50 years old. The isolated interventions made on the hygiene of the water do not reach the levels of desired success by themselves considering this type of affections, that depend on other factors associated to the health conditions, the quality of life and the health education.

Elaboration and analysis of social indicators as an instrument to support decision making in the process of depollution of the Guanabara Bay

2019-07-31T08:59:39-03:00

Despite the efforts in the depollution since the 1990s, evolution of the damaged social scenario in the region of the watershed of the Guanabara Bay is not perceived by the public opinion. The importance of social indicators emerges in a moment in which rendering account to the population regarding investiments and results obtained, orienting actions for emergency social and local issues and monitoring results for identification of adjustments to the actions for the achievement of better results is necessary. The current agenda for debating social issues of the region of the bay represented the basis for the creation of a system of social indicators. Three watersheds in depollution process were also studied, focusing on their approaches regarding social issues. A theoretical model of indicators was developed and tested in a draft of the Guanabara Bay watershed, using the public data available. The model proved to be a useful tool for an holistic approach of the bay by providing information on the better orientation of depollution actions for more effective results in both social and environmental issues.