Considerações sobre a epidemiologia no campo de práticas de saúde ambiental

Abstract

The objective of this article is to discuss some subjects related to the specificity of epidemiology when it is applied to the environmental context, which imposes special characteristics to epidemiology. The environment possesses at least two interacting dimensions: one constituted of social practices historically delineated and another including theories from scientific knowledge. The first dimension of that context has the Rio-92 Declaration as background, and the second one, theoretical-conceptual, introduces epidemiology in a model that articulates three areas: production, environment and health. Afterwards, some points of that emerge development of environmental epidemiology are highlighted: the object specificity, the complexity related to the risk situations and interdisciplinarity. A practical example of application of environmental epidemiology through the initiation of an environmental health information system is discussed, in order to support Environmental Health Surveillance.