Challenges and ethical problems of Health Surveillance: dialectic tension between health risks and needs

Abstract

The Health Services are under a dialectic tension between two directives: the collective control of risks and individual care, whose needs are shaped by social determinants of health. The surveillance, as a service, centers on the biopolitical governing of collective risks and focusses on a certain population, living in a specific area, defined as a social space, where the health needs are evident, demanding healthcare. The responses depend on the surveillance data taken from the societal processes that make up the risks. The central ethical problem is if these data cause facilitate emancipation or perpetuate the risks.

Keywords

• vigilância em saúde
• epidemiologia
• grupos de riscos
• necessidades e demandas de serviços de saúde
• ética