COVID-19 Remote Consultation Services and Population in Health Inequity-Concentrating Territories: A Scoping Review.

Background: This review aimed to map initiatives for measuring the satisfaction of vulnerable populations with teleconsultation services offered by public and private health care providers in their territories, during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. Systematic studies on the opinions of people most affected by health inequities are limited. Therefore, we included evaluations of teleconsultation-based services offered to socioeconomically disadvantaged and clinically vulnerable populations globally, with a focus on surveillance, treatment, and prevention of COVID-19. Materials and Methods: This review includes analytical and descriptive observational studies primarily from MEDLINE, EMBASE, SCOPUS, and Web of Science databases, published after the World Health Organization received the first warnings about COVID-19 from Chinese authorities in December, 2019, until December 2020. The search strategy combined aspects of COVID-19, telemedicine, patient satisfaction, and key concepts of vulnerable populations. Results: We selected 33 studies for full-text reading and 10 for critical appraisal. Two categories emerged from the qualitative analysis: telehealth evaluation and services during COVID-19, and opinions of vulnerable populations. Television and social networks play a crucial role in providing information. Although teleconsultations are practical and cost effective for patients, the majority preferred receiving in-person treatment in primary care clinics. Conclusions: Listening to the opinions of vulnerable groups and their caregivers is critical both before and during adoption of COVID-19 control measures. Health managers need to monitor the health of and delivery of services to socioeconomically and clinically vulnerable people closely, to improve services, and provide care from a human rights perspective.

Health and equity in Latin America: utopias and reality.

Curitiba's Declaration during the 22nd World Conference on Health Promotion of the IUHPE highlighted equity as a prerequisite for health and as an essential element of health promotion, though not as an isolated aim. Latin America today is facing the loss of civil rights, austerity policies and social inequities, which together are increasing the gap between rich and poor and putting the health sector on alert. As health professionals, it is therefore our responsibility to provide cross-cutting analyses on how inter-sectoral public policies might represent utopias and realities in such a dramatic period of our history. This article not only represents the implementation of brutal neoliberalism policies in Brazil, but also an opportunity to focus on utopias and realities re-emerging from the layers of social and community-based territorial movements. We aim to demonstrate how the attempts of political deconstruction of the Brazilian Unified Health System (SUS) might as well be confronted with strategic perspectives of working from the bottom up, to reorganize the health reform which led to its implementation. We use utopias and realities to illustrate how territorial networks might be used as tools of empowerment, along with constant flow of dialogues with the academic sector. Theoretical contributions of social sciences and critical epidemiology pinpoint that concepts of interculturality and emancipation might help Latin America overcome health inequities, whereas the social reconstruction of democracy occurs as both a reality and utopia within the public sector.

The 'locus' of health oversight in Brazil's Unified Health System - a place between the knowledge and the practices of social mobilization. / O lugar da vigilância no SUS ­ entre os saberes e as práticas de mobilização social.

Supervision of a health system presupposes keeping an attentive eye on the health situation of populations, so as to understand health, illness and healthcare as indissociable manifestations of human existence. Taking this point of view, this article examines health practices from the basis of some of their processes of communication. These are markedly professional-centered in their logic, with their emphasis on scientific, vertical and authoritarian discourse, predominantly in the spaces of the Unified Health System (SUS). In the territory, the process of communication is determinant. As a result of social interaction in daily life, the communication process reterritorializes the elements of the social totality: people, companies, institutions are re-dimensioned in the logic. It is a characteristic space for activities that aim for a more horizontal and democratic flow of communication.

Resumo A Vigilância em Saúde pressupõe olhar atento sobre a situação de saúde de populações, de modo que se compreenda a saúde, a doença e o cuidado como manifestações indissociáveis da existência humana. Considerando esta perspectiva, o artigo se propõe a examinar as práticas de saúde a partir de alguns de seus processos comunicacionais, estes marcados por uma lógica profissional-centrada, que privilegia o discurso cientificista, vertical e autoritário, predominante nos espaços do Sistema Único de Saúde. No território, o processo de comunicação é determinante. Por seu intermédio se dá a interação social e o fazer cotidiano que reterritorializam os elementos da totalidade social: homens, empresas, instituições são redimensionadas na lógica: a do localmente vivido, abrindo espaço para uma comunicação mais horizontalizada e democrática.

O lugar da vigilância no SUS - entre os saberes e as práticas de mobilização social / The 'locus' of health oversight in Brazil's Unified Health System - a place between the knowledge and the practices of social mobilization

Resumo A Vigilância em Saúde pressupõe olhar atento sobre a situação de saúde de populações, de modo que se compreenda a saúde, a doença e o cuidado como manifestações indissociáveis da existência humana. Considerando esta perspectiva, o artigo se propõe a examinar as práticas de saúde a partir de alguns de seus processos comunicacionais, estes marcados por uma lógica profissional-centrada, que privilegia o discurso cientificista, vertical e autoritário, predominante nos espaços do Sistema Único de Saúde. No território, o processo de comunicação é determinante. Por seu intermédio se dá a interação social e o fazer cotidiano que reterritorializam os elementos da totalidade social: homens, empresas, instituições são redimensionadas na lógica: a do localmente vivido, abrindo espaço para uma comunicação mais horizontalizada e democrática.

Abstract Supervision of a health system presupposes keeping an attentive eye on the health situation of populations, so as to understand health, illness and healthcare as indissociable manifestations of human existence. Taking this point of view, this article examines health practices from the basis of some of their processes of communication. These are markedly professional-centered in their logic, with their emphasis on scientific, vertical and authoritarian discourse, predominantly in the spaces of the Unified Health System (SUS). In the territory, the process of communication is determinant. As a result of social interaction in daily life, the communication process reterritorializes the elements of the social totality: people, companies, institutions are re-dimensioned in the logic. It is a characteristic space for activities that aim for a more horizontal and democratic flow of communication.