Gender-based violence in Public Health: challenges and achievements

This text deals with violence against women (VAW) as a scientific and practical object of Health. It is a theoretical and critical reflection related to historical processes that show convergences and distances between the approach of this violence as an issue and the health field particularities, creating contemporary conquests and challenges especially to Public Health. The text debates interdisciplinary aspects of this scientific object and some impacts to the knowledge production and to health actions. Considering the different scientific and practical cultures of Health and other fields that already deal with VAW, existing tensions between health perspective and violence as a socio-cultural phenomenon are showed, becoming critical when added the gender approach. Challenges are then created on dialogs between those fields in terms of: paradigms, scientific models and languages of each one; social intervention needs in every field; and the distinct relation between knowledge and social intervention presented in each field. On the other hand, the conquests related to human and social rights and the proposal of integral health are shown as convergences between these fields. To conclude, some possible answers to the challenges are considered.