Social medicalization and alternative and complementary medicine: the pluralization of health services in the Brazilian Unified Health System

Authors

  • Charles Dalcanale Tesser Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina; Departamento de Saúde Pública
  • Nelson Filice de Barros Universidade Estadual de Campinas; Faculdade de Ciências Médicas; Departamento de Medicina Preventiva e Social

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1590/S0034-89102008000500018

Keywords:

Social Medicine, Health Services Needs and Demand, Complementary Therapies^i2^sutilizat, Single Health System, Health Services, Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice

Abstract

Social medicalization transforms people's habits, discourages them from finding their own solutions to certain health problems and places an excess demand on the Unified Health System. With regard to healthcare provision, an alternative to social medicalization is the pluralization of treatment provided by health institutions namely through the recognition and provision of alternative and complementary practices and medicines. The objective of the article was to analyze the potentials and difficulties of alternative and complementary practices and medicines based on clinical and institutional experiences and on the specialist literature. The research concludes that the potential of such a strategy to "demedicalize" is limited and should be included in the remit of the Unified Health System. The article highlights that the Biosciences retain a political and epistemiological hegemony over medicine and that the area of healthcare is dominated by market principles, whereby there is a trend towards the transformation of any kind of knowledge or structured practice related to health-illness processes into goods or procedures to be consumed, and this only reinforces heteronomy and medicalization.

Published

2008-10-01

Issue

Section

Original Articles

How to Cite

Social medicalization and alternative and complementary medicine: the pluralization of health services in the Brazilian Unified Health System . (2008). Revista De Saúde Pública, 42(5), 914-920. https://doi.org/10.1590/S0034-89102008000500018