Harm reduction: strategic care for vulnerable populations in the city of Santo André - SP

Abstract

The Harm Reduction Unit (HRU) of the Municipal Health Department of Santo André (state of São Paulo) is a working tool for healthcare that has the purpose of transforming the health situation of individuals who are part of socially stigmatized, therefore vulnerable, groups. These are individuals who spend their lives or work on the streets: drug users, male prostitutes, female sex workers, men who have sex with men, sexually exploited adolescents, transsexuals, transvestites, lesbians and women working in brothels. The HRU's potential benefits were indicated to be: it improved healthcare and condom use; decreased drug use; improved seeking and access to healthcare services; decreased material sharing for drug use; improved decision-making capacity. HRU's actions have gone beyond prevention of health damage, as it has promoted broader transformations such as awareness of social rights in general and health rights in particular, along with actions towards making these rights apply, based on the principle of integrality of SUS (Brazil's National Health System). Since 2002 we have assisted, through outreach work, 240 prostitutes, 120 travestites, 10 sexually exploited adolescents and 28 drug users (intravenous and crack).