“If you’re talking about poor communities, forget it!”: (lack of) human rights advocacy for adequate food in primary healthcare

This study aimed to understand the forms of professional work and proposed actions to achieve the human right to adequate food (HRAF) in the context of primary healthcare (PHC). Using a qualitative approach, the authors conducted semi-structured interviews (from May 2013 to July 2014) with healthcare workers that conducted educational groups on food and nutrition in PHC in the city of São Paulo, Brazil. Content analysis was performed to identify the proposed actions on food, with HRAF as the theoretical basis. We identified three categories of professional work based on the proposed actions for food and nutrition. The first approaches food as a biomedical dimension. The second focuses on access and availability of foods in the territory. The third approaches users’ local food reality, centered on the team’s work. The proposed actions feature those conducted by individuals with obligations towards HRAF (healthcare workers in PHC) and those performed by rights-holder (users of PHC in the Brazilian Unified National Health System). Food in contexts of poverty is treated as a problem with no solution. This study allowed approximations between “what to do” and “how to act” based on ways of grasping food through the definitions, professional work, and proposed actions to achieve HRAF in PHC. It also allowed elucidating the need to understand food as a human right and strengthening the responsibility of healthcare workers in PHC as duty-bearers towards HRAF in the context of social policies.

Keywords:
Primary Health Care; Human Rights; Food and Nutrition Security; Unified Health System