Structural vulnerability and new perspectives in social medicine on the health of immigrants: Interview with James Quesada and Seth M. Holmes

Abstract

A decade ago, a number of English-speaking authors focused mainly on the analysis and intervention of processes of social determination of health of migrants developed the concept of structural vulnerability as a way to combat individualism, biologism, the invisibilization of processes of structural determination and the blaming of victims. As part of the historical contributions of social medicine, the current developments of the structural vulnerability approach have been disconnected from the discussions of the collective health movement and Latin American social medicine in general, among other reasons due to linguistic barriers associated with the scarcity of publications in Spanish. The present interview, conducted with two of the primary representatives of the structural vulnerability approach, investigates its historical origins and seeks to explore the specific contributions that are being made today, as a way to bring them closer to Spanish-speaking readers and so enable dialogue with the proposals of Latin American social medicine.