Vacinação: um outro olhar - Instituto de Estudos em Saúde Coletiva ...

ABSTRACTThis work aimed survey the factors involved in the significant attendanceof mothers to the National Immunization Program vaccine calendar, incontrast to the reaction of the Rio de Janeiro population against the smallpox obligatory vaccination a century ago, culminating in the VaccineInsurrection. Using the structural approach of the social representations,it was identified that the mothers and pregnant focused in this study mainlyassociate immunization to "prevention" and "protection". The perceptions"good", "care" and "responsibility" detected in the representation peripheralsystem would impel those mothers to incorporate into their quotidian theearned cognizance and, hence, to ensure their attendance to the vaccinecalendar. It was also evidenced that the connotations that are attributedby the mothers to the immunization closely resemble to the Epidemiologyacademic speech, which characterizes the immunization actions as specificprotection ones, at the level of elementary health prevention. Thus, therecent experience of children vaccination in Brazil, which reached near 90%attendance in almost two decades, indicates that an active and consciousperception of the immunization benefits is able to substituteunacquaintance and opposition of mothers towards vaccination. It wasidentified that a set of specific political, economic, cultural,technological national and international factors are involved in theimmunobiological offers to the national health network, and are responsiblefor the observed attendance to the vaccine calendar.Key-words: vaccination, health and education, social representations.Ix