title: [Life in their eyes, heart in their hands: conceptions and representations of women in the process of health and disease].
abstract: This social and historical investigation into the ways the health and sickness of mothers from Teixeiras municipality, Minas Gerais state, was represented is designed to comprehend behaviors in this sphere and help develop research in collective health. The semantics and indicators of a pluralistic view of disease and health, were built up from the most holistic to the most biomedical, from the most relational to the most individual. The quest for happiness was presented as a health concept by the mothers, which recalls Aristotelian and Spinozian philosophical concepts, but they put greater emphasis on the absence of illness. The prevailing welfare model still supplies useful references for interpreting such experiences. As the mother's status as care-taker helps one glean an understanding of other factors that affect the process of health and disease, it becomes possible to plan healthcare initiatives that are less alienating and more libertarian.
authors.affiliation: Universidade Federal de Viçosa, Campus Universitário, Viçosa, Brasil. glaucedias@yahoo.com.br
authors.forename: Glauce
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Dias
authors.forename: Sylvia do Carmo Castro
authors.initials: Sdo C
authors.lastname: Franceschini
authors.forename: José Roberto
authors.initials: JR
authors.lastname: Reis
authors.forename: Roberta Sena
authors.initials: RS
authors.lastname: Reis
authors.forename: Rodrigo
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Siqueira-Batista
authors.forename: Rosângela Minardi Mitre
authors.initials: RM
authors.lastname: Cotta
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001294:Attitude to Health; D001938:Brazil; D005260:Female; D006240:Happiness; D015438:Health Behavior; D006304:Health Status; D006305:Health Status Indicators; D006801:Humans; D008429:Maternal Welfare; D036301:Qualitative Research; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D016387:Women's Health