Epidemiology and human emancipation: revisiting the principles of justice

Abstract

Epidemiology, despite its socio-historical origins, has become hegemonically individual and linear, with the north-southern hemispheres divide, methodology and critical theory, which calls for a human emancipation oriented epidemiology. The aim of this article is to assess how critical epidemiology has contributed to effective human emancipation practices in public health, at different justice levels. An Integrative review was performed, with searches in PubMed, VHL, ASSIA, EMBASE and SA databases and thematic and cross-case analysis. Elaborating through critical counter-hegemonic epidemiology adjusted lens, we reconstitute the tension between different modes of human and political emancipations, at the levels of cognitive, socio-environmental and health justice. The cognitive level is crossed by the ‘way of the world’
and the ‘abyssal’ thinking and involves the other levels. The socio-environmental level was anchored in the historical socio-natural metabolism and that of health, anguishes between well-being and the fragmented struggles for universal health rights, as opposed to the spoliation of the sector. In confronting the capital accumulation model, it’s essential to value interculturality and subjectivity We found evidence that the ‘Epistemology of the South’ points out to a decolonizing thought-oriented methodology, capable of enhancing discoveries and demystifying social relations.