Citation

Laguardia J. Cien. Saude Colet. 2007; 12(1): 253-261.

Vernacular Title

Raca e epidemiologia: as estrategias para construcao de diferencas biologicas.

Affiliation

Escola Nacional de Saúde Pública, Fundação Oswaldo Cruz, Rio de Janeiro. josue_laguardia@yahoo.com.br

Copyright

(Copyright © 2007, Associacao Brasileira de Pos-Graduacao em Saude Coletiva)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

17680077

Abstract

In the current controversies about race and racial differences in health, epidemiology is seen as the authority that confirms or refutes the scientific truth of these differences. Pointing out the current discussions about the limitations of risk factor epidemiology, hegemonic branch of the epidemiological approaches, it is the aim of this article to highlight the ideological character of the causal assumptions and epistemological strategies that restate and reify the racial differences in health based on biological determinism and statistical reductionism. The objective of this work is to highlight the possibilities of contestation of some interpretations about epidemiological findings on racial differences in health, emphasizing the political and ideological aspects of science and providing the investigators with arguments that can help to overcome the racialism that permeates certain causal hypothesis about human diversity and disease.

Language: pt