Abstract

RAMIS ANDALIA, Rina Milagros  and  SOTOLONGO CODINA, Pedro Luis. Contributions of the thinking and sciences of Complexity to the study of health determinants. Rev Cubana Salud Pública [online]. 2009, vol.35, n.4, pp.65-77. ISSN 0864-3466.

The development of Sciences of Modernity made possible that the scientific knowledge arose as the most important of all knowledge in such a way that "measurement" and "exactitude" became highly appreciated virtues. However, the scientific discoveries made during the xix and xx centuries reached opposing conclusions: "uncertainty", "blurriness", "emergency" and "chaos" appear as expressions of a new way of thinking that breaks the chain of five centuries of successes in Classical Sciences. It is stated the existence of epistemological gaps in Epidemiology, especially in relation to the epidemiological categories of causality and risk, since the current health problems are increasingly globalized, become "holistic", and are determined not by the action of individual risk factors, but by the participation of "the social" articulated with "the biological" as a whole. It is reflected on the influence thinking and the theories of Complexity has had on the Social Latin American Epidemiology. Reference is made to the work done by different groups in Cuba, such as the Health and Complexity Network Group of the Professorship of Complexity of the Institute of Philosophy of Havana and the Epidemiology Group of the National School of Public Health in the search of alternatives to articulate causality and the determinants, starting from the assumptions of thought and the theories of Complexity, in order to express them not only as theoretical metaphors, but also as a real attempt of practical application.

Keywords : Sciences of Complexity; health determinants; epidemiology.

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