AEGiS-14IAC: Qualification of teams in sexual and reproductive health in ethnographic - based participative methodologies: an experience in the prevention field.

14th International AIDS Conference

Barcelona, Spain - July 7-12, 2002

Qualification of teams in sexual and reproductive health in ethnographic - based participative methodologies: an experience in the prevention field.

Int Conf AIDS 2002 Jul 7-12; 14:(abstract no. G12509)

Guimaraes WL, Edmundo KM, Lima MS, Becker D
Centro de Promocao da Saude, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

ISSUE: The NGOs professionals who work with aids come from different knowledge fields. They build a social practice - prevention - featured by educational activities and participative methodologies that are consolidated in their interaction with the population.

DESCRIPTION: The project, implemented in partnership with Progresar/ICMER and EICOS/UFRJ, aimed to design a course to train professionals and prevention agents, aiming to present and study concepts of the anthropology field and ethnographic methodology as a way to investigate the meanings attributed to the concept of vulnerability and related issues. The course generated a publication comprised of texts from participants on knowledge applicability in the field of reproductive health and hiv/aids prevention.

ISSUES: A 40-hour course qualified 28 people and was the base for a technical-methodological consolidation of std/aids prevention and their impacts in the life of different groups and in the development of communities. The investigation and the "voice" of the target segments concerning prevention actions allows the rise of contents and meanings that can comprise a message for an effective prevention. The issue is not just to diversify and consider local cultural approaches. It is necessary to change the content, reaching the beliefs and thinking systems that causes healthy or unhealthy attitudes on persons and groups. RECOMMENDATION: Prevention, as education, is a social practice that is strengthened by its historic path and becomes an investigation field and theoretical production driven by the aids cause. In countries like Brazil, a great deal of diseases come from attitudes that can be prevented by the change of habits. It is essential to create specialized courses that join the theoretical knowledge in different fields with the knowledge generated by experience stemming from prevention practices developed in specific segments and in the communities.

Keywords: AEGIS, Students, HIV Infections, Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome, Teaching, Learning, Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice, Population, Research, Culture, Knowledge, Brazil, methods, prevention & control, therapy

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