When the health system reproduce exclusion for cancer prevention in rural settings

LUXARDO NATALIA

Florianópolis

Congreso; World of Encounters: The past, present and future of Anthropological Knowledge; 2018

International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Studies (IUAES)- ABA

This presentation aims to provide insights for discussing some challenges in the studies of health inequalities, examining for that purpose our own empirical researches on cancer. The intention is to go further the empirical case/research for strengthening collective ?bridges? in perspectives that study health inequalities. Before getting to inequalities, it´s important to expose how we get there. The starting point is the study of cancer from medical interpretative and critical anthropology perspectives for the last decade.Oncology as a cultural system, identifying actors involved, competing interests, different explanations about the genesis of the cancer, social meanings of the illness and treatments, the role of caregivers and specifically, cancer trajectories. The common point among all these approaches was situated ethnography, the enquiry of making senses within particular contexts: third-level complexity settings: oncology hospitals. We get to inequalities later: 1) Empirically through the leads of our own data. 2) Epidemiologically and theoretically through the search for a macro and bigger panorama based on secondary sources. The justification of this approach based on inequalities at the macro level was support by revising epidemiological evidence on cancer in the region that shows disproportionate share of the epidemic in ?global south? due to the advanced stages of diagnosis. Indicators: preventable or detectable tumors (such as cervix, breasts, colon, etc.) that are either avoid or detect at early stages have higher incidence, prevalence, mortality and/or burden of care.