This article analyzes representations and practices regarding health and illness among working-class families in Paulínea, São Paulo. Special emphasis is placed on the relationship with the medicine employed by doctors in the network of public health care services recently implemented in the town and considered by health care experts to be a model in the Brazilian context. The study also focuses on practices related to traditional household or religious medicine and medication by pharmacists as important elements available to the families studied.
Health and Disease Representations; Primary Health Care; Worker's Health; Health Services