Gênero, saúde e espaço urbano: mulheres grávidas expostas à infecção por malária na zona leste de Manaus-AM

Abstract

Although several studies on malaria have provided much information about their biological and behavioral, this illness is still a major social problem, especially in the Amazon region which has favorable conditions for proliferation and maintenance of the transmission vector, given that it feeds on human blood and has a tendency to domesticity, which in turn, is facilitated by the housing situation of people living in these endemic areas. Aiming to analyze pregnant women exposed to malaria and their relationship with the urban space they inhabit, we found their housing conditions and housing and related to the incidence of infection with the characteristics of urban space that are involved. Thus, this study aimed to associate the female gender studies to studies of urban space, linking them with the results of observations and applied questionnaires at the time of the visits to the houses of these women, trying to understand how socio-spatial context makes them vulnerable to catch malaria. In this sense, we tried to understand the malaria as a disease caused by multiple factors, and, through this perspective were considered possible determinants that contribute to its incidence in pregnant women living in the neighborhood Jorge Teixeira in Manaus-AM. Thus, a link was made between the conditions of housing, the transmission vector behavior, the environment changes, as well as the incidence of the disease within the context of urban space production where the pregnant women enrolled in this study live. According to the collected data, most pregnant women do not have a job outside the home and therefore do not tend to leave their homes frequently throughout the day period. In their homes usually can be found standing or stored water for their own consumption, or accumulated in the vicinity. Their homes generally do not have screens on windows or doors and there are few who have the ceiling liners. In principle, both, those with a history of malaria as those without a history of malaria, have the same habits and maintain relations of friendship/neighborhood. Due to this, the conclusion is that exposure and incidence of malaria in pregnant women involved in this study are related to their unstructured housing, therefore the analysis of this situation showed that the quality of housing conditions is important to overcome infectious and parasitic diseases.