This project is working with the promotion of OHP, emphasizing the participation of adolescents from two favelas of São Paulo city: Jardim São Remo in the West Zone, and Serra Pelada in the North Zone. Similar to Community Health Agents and Environmental Protections Agents, adolescents act as community agents. Their perspectives and community engagement are differentiated due to their conditions as adolescents, residents, and participants of local sociocultural institutions. Currently, they are involved in: (1) context diagnostics through participatory mapping methodologies, (2) conversation circles, (3) organization and implementation of OHP promotion workshops, (4) revitalization of public spaces, and (5) the implementation of a pilot phase of a monitoring system of health indicators.
Territorial bonds based on multispecies care are undissociable from OHP promotion. During the Covid-19 pandemics, the Friendship Garden in the favela São Remo was dramatically damaged, despite its historic and symbolic value. As Eraldo said, “there was a tree massacre, they destroyed the home of a lot of birds, the bees are suffering”. The role of Eraldo da Silva and Camila Santos, two residents of the community has been crucial for revitalizing the Garden. In that context, the OHP network, called to help in the process, has been articulating community efforts, peripheral pedagogies, and academic knowledge.
A wonderful meeting organized with our friends Dumangue and Ericsson Magnavita, and those of the [Juegos Translúcidos] (https://www.juegostranslucidos.com/) (Translucid Games) collective. Games, transparency, colors, music, and improvisation in an OHP magic experience.
Handwashing helps to prevent zoonoses and other infections. However, handwashing must follow a specific procedure to maximize preventive effectiveness, and research shows that even health professionals have difficulties following that procedure. Little is known about preventive behaviors in urban peripheries, and handwashing is not an exception. Thus, this study evaluated handwashing in children and adolescents of the Circo Escola no Jardim São Remo, a public equipment with an invaluable social function. Unfortunately, the city prefecture abandoned the equipment during the COVID-19 pandemic. To date, it continues accumulating damages in its infrastructure and generating anxiety in the community, that nevertheless, is organized to rescue it. The present study used the theory of planned behavior to investigate how attitudes, social norms, and perceived control influence handwashing. The results point to limitations and possibilities to promote handwashing among children in urban peripheries. The study was developed by students and professors of the OHP network and started the publication process.
The prioritization of populations at greater risk of suffering health problems is one of the bases of modern epidemiology, together with the rigor of quantitative methods and the quality of the data. The neglect of peripheries is translated not into the exposition but in the imposition of risk factors, making them priorities from an epidemiological point of view. The neglect also gives rise to the lack of information and therefore to the compromise of one of the mentioned bases. The essence of epidemiological models is the simplification of reality and facing the difficulties brought by the marginalization of the peripheries, a convenient simplification to be able to apply these models is to assume that peripheries do not exist. However, one thing is the epidemiological models and the other is the epidemiological reality. Peripheries, inequalities, inequities, political decisions, and corporate interests can be ignored in models, but that does not erase them from reality. Resuming the priority that should be given to the peripheries, this ethnographic study addresses a basic point and at the same time largely ignored in the epidemiology of Covid-19: How has been the pandemic experience according to peripheries’ residents? The answers are revealing serious difficulties for any attempt restricted to the use of masks, alcohol, and physical distancing of 2 meters. When considering peripheral multispecies collectives, the study reinforces something that has been forgotten when not completely ignored: Covid-19, like other pandemics, emerged from marginalized multispecies collectives and is affecting multiple species in different peripheries. The research is funded by the Tide Setubal Foundation and carried out by the Research Group of the Periphery of the Institute for Advanced Studies (nPeriferias) by Oswaldo Santos Baquero, Júlia Amorim, Sara da Silva (Faculty of Medicine - FM-USP), Dora Barrientos (School of Arts, Sciences and Humanities - EACH-USP, nPeriferias-IEA-USP), Ana Claudia Germani (Faculty of Medicine - FM-USP, nPeriferias-IEA-USP), and Gislene Santos (EACH-USP, nPeriferias-IEA-USP).
Why do some children witness and commit violent acts against animals more than others? To contribute to the answer, this study integrates psychological theories, psychometric validation of questionnaires, statistical modeling, and assessment of the effect of social vulnerability. The research is being developed by Juliana Tozzi de Almeida and Oswaldo Santos Baquero.
Some diseases are relatively restricted to peripheries, affecting billions of marginalized people and animals. Despite the order of magnitude, the pharmaceutical industry invests little in these victims because they are economically poor and do not meet the expectations of generating profit. Although international organizations talk about neglected diseases, there is a more fundamental problem regarding multispecies collectives subjected to various forms of neglect. Anyway, diseases are neglected and underreported, raising a question: in silent areas (without any report) of a city there are no cases, or are there but they were not identified? In the present research, spatial statistical models are being used to predict the number of cases of feline sporotrichosis in silent areas of Guarulhos city, based on the epidemiological situation of neighboring areas and the social vulnerability of the silent areas and their neighbor areas. The team is made up by Lígia Neves Scuarcialupi, Fernando Cortéz Pereira (Guarulhos Zoonoses Control Center) and Oswaldo Santos Baquero.
A census we carried out and which we are working on to publish the results showed that in Jardim São Remo there are more companion animals than children. Many people consider these animals to be part of the family. Thus, taking care of companion animals, in addition to being necessary for their intrinsic value, is necessary for the well-being of families. Animal welfare science helps to legitimize the exploitation of animals in agribusiness. However, it makes important contributions such as the conceptualization of the five freedoms, by which it indicates that animals should have:
Through a series of meetings with children and teenagers from the Circo Escola (NGO), these freedoms were the object of games, conversations, and other activities. Data from a questionnaire on the subject are being analyzed to identify some ways in which children and adolescents understand manifestations and practices related to the five freedoms.
Small spaces and a sedentary lifestyle, as well as the deprivation of some stimuli and the excess of others predispose to dysfunctional family relationships. Moreover, the lack of knowledge of animal behavior leads to communication failures, and in the case of dogs, to fatal bites. On most occasions, dogs show alert behaviors that could avoid physical aggression. However, when ignored, they can progress to attacks with multiple consequences: physical injuries; psychological traumas; high costs of surgical, pharmacological, and psychological treatment; mistreatment, abandonment, and even death of aggressive dogs, and; unfortunately, to the death of human victims. Accidents involving children are more likely to be serious. Therefore, preventive strategies must invest in identifying and creating spaces conducive to safe interactions between children and dogs, while teaching about alert behaviors to avoid accidents. Although accidents with cats are generally of lesser severity, they can also be serious and avoided following the same reasoning. For this reason, healthy interactions and the prevention of bites were an axis worked on in meetings with children and adolescents from the Circo Escola (NGO) in Jardim São Remo. In this project, we had the collaboration of Rosangela Ribeiro Gebara, from Ampara Animal.
When working on environmental education, we must consider that there is not a single approach, a standardized debate, or ready-made solutions. Each community, each public, and each environment has its peculiarities. Thus, the children and teenagers of Circo Escola helped us to understand some of São Remo’s challenges. With them, we established dialogues and reflections to encourage collective attitudes and think of practical solutions to everyday problems that, when affecting the environment, also impact beings who live and compose it. Furthermore, we mapped the most problematic places in the territory and developed awareness-raising activities with the company responsible for collecting household waste (Loga). We also visited the sanitary landfill managed by the company.
Around 75% of emerging infectious diseases in humans are of animal origin, and 60% of existing human infectious diseases are zoonotic. In addition, foods of animal origin or contaminated with zoonotic pathogens increase disease burden. Individual prevention measures are well known; however, many lose meaning in peripheral contexts. How do people receive the recommendation to keep potted plants’ saucers dry to prevent arboviruses when houses are built on open-air streams into which sewage is dumped, and the households structure do not protect against flooding from polluted waters? Or the recommendation to keep companion animals indoors to avoid multiple zoonoses and other health problems, when houses are extremely small and their physical structure does not allow it? When the usual recommendations lose meaning, it is necessary to think differently, something we have learned with the children of Circo Escola during meetings to talk and build preventive strategies against zoonoses and foodborne diseases.
Panoramic imagem by our friend Notable Salazar @salazarnotable