Modos de vida juvenis: a saúde no cotidiano dos jovens

Abstract

This study was focused on the health of young people in everyday life. As a research problem it was considered that young people, even being considered a priority group for its vulnerabilities, dont have their daily experiences, their own potential and juvenile diversity contemplated in health care. The beginning was the premise that young people construct health care actions in their lives, which are determined by context of life, and in the conflict for survival get ways of living and being healthful few incorporated into assistance and political actions to approach this point. The investigation was structured around the following questions: What are the health questions expressed in the living condition of youth? How can health care actions be present in everyday practices of young people? If the health care actions are present in the youths daily life, do they include actions for health promotion? The aim approach was to analyze youth ways of life getting the meanings and feelings of health in their daily lives. A qualitative investigation was undertaken, based on the dialectic considering the worldview about the practice and the contradictions about the objective reality. As a theoretical and methodological support it was used the individual Sociology and the sociology of everyday life. Jardim Felicidade neighborhood in the city of Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil, was the study setting. The fieldwork was conducted from March 2008 to June 2010, contemplating an exploratory phase for the recognition of the territory and for the neighborhood mapping, focused on the youth groups and spaces. It had also included an interpretive phase, when the interviews were conducted with 19 young subject of study, and the observation and the diary of the participant. Data analysis was made with contributions of the hermeneutic and the dialectic; in order to connect the studied reality to the singularity of juvenile experiences. Through two empirical categories data were analyzed starting from the ways of life and youth condition in Jardim Felicidade neighborhood so than it was focused on young peoples health in everyday life. The results confirmed the first thesis about young people care actions in daily life that considered the resources in day-to-day experience in the juvenile condition. The speeches of the young participants showed that the main concept of health is concentrated on the behavior, and the body is the focus of care practices. The relationship with the body in its symbolic, biological and cultural connotation was highlighted by young people as actions of health care. According to young people, these actions are constructed in social spaces that are part of their daily life, crossing their lives. The results also showed the fragilities and strengths of health care actions in the territory, including the social spaces and the health care service, which involves practice changes, in movement. Young people indicated the possibilities for overcoming the challenges through the participation, the identity and the belonging to the neighborhood with the local development and interaction with the juvenile condition in its heterogeneity. In conclusion for youth health promotion it is necessary beginning from young people lifestyle, interact with them in their daily lives and deconstruct the traditional view that health care actions are materialized in specific spaces. It is necessary to build strategies for immersion in the youths daily life to increase care actions through secure information that they demand in their speeches. Finally, the study results revealed that health care actions have on young people lives a space of (in) visibility that interact with their priorities, with the main and marker actions of juvenile condition. The research will thus contribute to the daily health care practices of young people, and will give a support for health politic formulation, aimed at young people from lower classes.