EDITORIAL
Social determinants of health
In March 2006 the President of Brazil created the National Commission on Social Determinants of Health (CNDSS), following a recommendation by the World Health Organization, which had launched the World Commission a year earlier, in March 2005.
The CNDSS aims to mobilize Brazilian society and the government itself to understand and deal more effectively with the social causes of diseases and mortality that affect the population and to reinforce what is socially beneficial for individual and collective health.
The preservation of health and prevention of diseases and other health problems requires not only individual awareness and action, but also the implementation of social and health-related public policies and mobilization of society. The CNDSS draws strong inspiration from Article 196 of the Brazilian Constitution, which determines that "health is the right of all and the duty of the state and is guaranteed by means of social and economic policies aimed at reducing the risk of diseases and other health problems".
The fight against the enormous inequalities in health conditions within the Brazilian population is a central concern of the CNDSS. To approach the topic, this issue of Cadernos de Saúde Pública is publishing the document Iniqüidades em Saúde no Brasil, Nossa Mais Grave Doença: Comentários sobre o Documento de Referência e os Trabalhos da Comissão Nacional sobre Determinantes Sociais da Saúde, a reference for the National Commission's work.
Membership in the CNDSS consists of leading experts from various sectors of society with a broad and acknowledged commitment to health promotion and quality of life. In order to include its suggestions and recommendations in the government's agenda, the Commission will work with a group of representatives from 16 Ministries in the economic and social areas, in addition to the National Council of State Health Secretaries (CONASS), the National Council of Municipal Health Secretaries (CONASEMS), the National Health Council, and the Pan-American Health Organization.
The Commission's main objective is mobilization for action by the political sphere, society, the media, and the scientific community. A document identifying the principal determinants of health and the actions needed to improve them will be submitted to the country's Presidential candidates in a public event held by the CNDSS and other partners in August this year. The Commission is also promoting this debate in various technical and scientific congresses nationwide.
As a result of understandings between the CNDSS and the Ministry of Health, a call for proposals has just been issued for research on social determinants of health in order to enhance the analyses in this field and identify the most effective interventions to deal with them. Various special issues of journals from the collective health field are also planned for the coming years.
With the support of the CNDSS, the press in general and the specialized media such as the Health Channel, RADIS, and the ABRASCO and CEBES newsletters have focused new attention on this debate, which had been submerged under exclusively technical issues that have dominated the more recent debate on health in Brazil. A series of papers and news stories, lines of action, projects, and activities related to social determinants of health and the CNDSS are available at http://www.determinantes.fiocruz.br.
To conclude this first phase in the life of the CNDSS, in September the World Commission will be coming to Brazil for a joint meeting with the National Commission.
The creation and development of activities by the CNDSS is a golden opportunity for mobilizing all those who believe that the health-disease process in Brazil is not only biological and individual, but is determined and manifested decisively by the socioeconomic and cultural context in which Brazilians are born, live, and die, and therefore merits our fullest attention and action.
Paulo M. Buss
Comissão Nacional sobre Determinantes Sociais da Saúde.
Presidência, Fundação Oswaldo Cruz, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil.
Alberto Pellegrini Filho
Comissão Nacional sobre Determinantes Sociais da Saúde.
Escola Nacional de Saúde Pública Sergio Arouca,
Fundação Oswaldo Cruz, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil.
Publication Dates
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Publication in this collection
08 Aug 2006 -
Date of issue
Sept 2006
