Health for all by the year 2000-cultural handicaps and possible solutions.
Health conditions, as part-and-parcel of man's project of life, reflect the way people choose to live together as a collective body. Health behavior analysis cannot ignore cultural conditions that foster different ways of life. Health practices are not a matter of mere compliance to a set of norms, but a cultural product. Professional competencies ask for a sufficient curriculum, a full proficiency. Myth and logos should be related and the symbolic form everyday experience assumes should be discussed. Paradigmatic thought should give place to mutual growth and subjective and objective aspects of reality should have an equal and complementary standing. Disciplinarity and multidisciplinarity should evolve into interdisciplinarity, as a paradigm of cooperation, interconnection, equality, and flexibility in order to define curricula and programs. Conceptual ecology of science should be emphasized. New concepts of growth, wealth, work, and power should be discussed as a way of attaining health for all in the year 2000.
Pilon
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AF
School of Public Health, University of Säo Paulo, Brazil.