The perspective of intersectionality and the analysis of social markers in sociocultural processes of health-illness and care

Abstract

The perspective of intersectionality has gained ground in the last decade, in view of the need to reflect how social markers (class, race, gender, generation, sexuality) act in combination, producing and reproducing differences and inequalities in health. In the last 10 years, the research line "Gender, masculinities and health-illness processes and care" has developed different research projects. In two of them (1. Parental care and decision-making on non-vaccination of children in middle-class families in São Paulo 2. Vulnerability to HIV, prevention strategies and decision-making on the use of Post-Exposure Sexual Prophylaxis / PEP in three Brazilian regions), the initial data analysis reveals tensions and contradictions in the relation between individual and society, and require problematizing the place of the subjects (in terms of autonomy and freedom in the decision-making related to one´s own or others´ health) in the face of changing social processes involving gender, class, and generation markers. With this project - which is a six-month study program as Visiting Scholar at the Center for Latin American Studies (CLAS) and a collaboration with researchers from the Applied Social Science Group (ASSG), Department of Public Health and Primary Care of the University of Cambridge / UK - we intend to deepen theoretically and methodologically the perspective of intersectionality and to further the analyses of empirical data produced in the aforementioned researches, especially about decision-making processes, be it for the (non) vaccination of the children and the search for and use of PEP in HIV prevention, in the context of two important and recognized health policies in Brazil: HIV/AIDS and vaccination. (AU)