Resumen

FREITAS, Carlos Machado de. Environmental problems, collective health and social sciences. Ciênc. saúde coletiva [online]. 2003, vol.8, n.1, pp. 137-150. ISSN 1413-8123.  http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S1413-81232003000100011.

Environmental problems relative to health conditions have been always present in the speeches and practises about health. During 19 century, however, the wide and intense impacts of industrialization and urbanization over sanitary conditions contribute to a comprehension of these problems as result of social and political processes. With the advent of microbiological paradigm the strategies for these problems solutions were reduced to sanitation and vector control and the social and political dimensions become marginal and peripheric. The notion of environmental and health problems was enlarged and the social and political dimensions were retaking only during the 70s with the emergence of environmental movement and of social medicine in Latin-America. In spite of these advances, data analyses about researches groups, thesis and dissertations production and articles published in scientific journals reveal the collective health have a marginal role in the research about environmental problems and the research and scientific production of social science is too few. The present situation requires quantitative and qualitative advances in collective health research and scientific production, especially in the field of social science and health.

Palabras llave : Environmental problems; Social science; Collective health.