The concept of vulnerability and its biosocial nature

One of the theoretical exercises relating to public health comprises the necessary and continuing task of discussing the concepts that underlie its practices. A critical analysis on the uses of the concept of vulnerability in relation to health, based on a systematic review, provides the underpinning for a discussion on its content, scope and boundaries, with the aim of strengthening the theoretical and practical potential of the concept and the implied dialogue between the different fields of knowledge. This concept has high heuristic capacity and can be applied in different fields. In this article, it is characterized based on the complex processes of biosocial fragility that inextricably express biological, existential and social values. This perspective considers vulnerability to be an ontological dimension constitutive of human life that necessitates a diversity of complex security systems.