Social Participation in Health: Contributions of Community Psychology

Abstract

The purpose of this article is discuss social participation in health in the Unified Health System (SUS), relating theoretical and practical contributions from Community Psychology. In the case of public health policies, the participation is associated with the social control that population should exercise while person of rights starting from de introduction of SUS. However, many participation practices are made bureaucratical and legalistical form, without enabling democratic spaces and reinforcing authoritarian postures. So is this problematization that we incorporate concepts and practices of the Community Psychology. The methodology was a bibliography search about participation in SUS and the contributions from Community Psychology, and also to present three social experiments participation in health. Public health policies need to incorporate experiences in participation developed in community spaces in order to rethink the legalistic model, which is present in the daily lives of the SUS, and listen to its users better.