DISCUSSANTS DEBATEDORES
The authors reply
Os autores respondem
It is not often that one writes a paper such as the one we have written and it is not criticized and fault not found with the content. Often the commentators or reviewers point out, or seek to find the deficits, errors, areas of disagreements or differences in philosophies or approaches to the problem under discussion. It is a delight to note that this is not the case with these four reviewers. On the contrary, their comments add to our work. Each and every one of the reviewers has added an insight, information, more data and thoughtful reflection to our work. Rather than being critical the reviewers have built upon our paper and their comments make our work all the richer. Their different perspectives, drawing upon their individual disciplines and experiences, add important information and expand the scope of our paper. We thank them for their contributions.
Specifically, we put forth a philosophical perspective in the article which tone was pointed out by the commentators; namely a sense of compassion, seen as a sense of concern about others. The commentators recognized this point of view and how it captured the sensitivity the way the paper was presented and analyzed. The historical aspects of the central issues the cycle of poverty, violence and disabilities - reinforced the idea that it is necessary to bring these three issues more strongly to public awareness. A physician's perspective calls attention to the fact that even considering the recent public agenda, there is not yet an agenda in Brazil (and in Latin American and Caribbean) to deal with these three critical issues in the disability and mental health fields.
From the perspective of a psychologist, the political efforts in Brazil are directed to those groups living above the line of poverty. So, although the extremely poor are sometimes more visible to public agencies, there are still groups of disabled people, not always the poorest ones, which are still suffering from the lack of access to health care, education and opportunities for employment, as a consequence of social exclusion. Thus, the public agenda should also consider the poor and non-poor disabled people, who are still suffering from social exclusion. Finally a researcher of children and adolescents has shown with data the impact of poverty and inequalities in a school from a poor area of Brazil. By comparing children with or without intellectual impairment, she concluded that low intelligence quotients might reflect cultural and linguistic differences, related to lower socio-economical status and social inequalities. This group demonstrates a prevalence of mental disorders estimated at 3-4 times greater when compared to the general population. This reinforces our central idea that in order to break the cycle of poverty-disability and disability-poverty, we should transform this issue into a strong public cause.
Publication Dates
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Publication in this collection
20 Jan 2009 -
Date of issue
Feb 2009
