Saúde Coletiva in a time of pandemics: Syndemics, Zika, and Democracy in Brazil

Abstract

The emergence of Zika in 2015 represented a novel social health risk embedded within a trifecta of ongoing public health crises, shaped by gendered, racialized historical practices of sanitation reform with differential impacts. The expansion of health and social integration in Brazil are political projects in solidarity that demand a conceptual and geographical bridging of the scales of body, home, and state. Drawing on connections between community health and local organizing practices in Recife and Rio de Janeiro as case studies, I demonstrate the distinctive practices of Sa̼de Coletiva that reveal Brazil in transformation amidst a pivotal political moment and important flashpoint for gender equality in Brazil. Local community health workers and civil organizations continue their work in the aftermath of the 2016 Zika PHEIC in addressing the eco-social determinations Рor trajectories of health as a dynamic process in Sa̼de Coletiva, where community health workers and organizers were activated by Zika-related gendered risks in generating new spatial practices and forms of collectivity in ongoing struggles for Sa̼de Coletiva.