SOCIAL DETERMINATION VERSUS THE SOCIAL DETERMINANTS. REFLECTIONS FROM THE VIEW OF CRITICAL EPIDEMIOLOGY

Abstract

The present article was to contrast the approach of social determinants of health from it’s ontological, epistemological and practical foundations on the part of the movement of Latin American social medicine and collective health versus the social determinants current defended by the social determinants commission of the health of the WHO (Organización Mundial de la Salud) (CDSS), in the construction of reflections from the perspective of critical epidemiology, as the new vision that must portray public health. For this, the methodological bases are supported in a documentary study by means of a heuristic arching of the sources. The work unfolds in three edges. The first deals with the characterization of health and disease from the focus of social determination of health and the focus of social determinants. The second section divided the epistemological foundation and praxis, its empirical references and categories of analysis of the social determination of health and social determinants, according to the defense of each tendency: the movement of Latin American social medicine and collective health versus the social determinants current defended by the commission of social determinants of health of the WHO (CDSS). The third highlights the contribution of the comparison, through reflections from the perspective of critical epidemiology. It’s concluded that the social determination of health responds to the criteria of critical epidemiology, while social determinants are developed based on causality and risk theory. And it would not be convenient to suggest a contradiction between both