Indigenous territories and socio-environmental determination of health: discussing exposure by pesticides

ABSTRACT The stages involving the agricultural supply chain produce different possibilities of vulnerability in populations, affecting the health situation of indigenous peoples. The use of pesticides is an activity intrinsic to monocultures. The exposure to these substances generates acute and chronic negative outcomes in human health and contamination in the environment. In order to contribute to the debate in Public Health, the text directs the discussions to the state of Mato Grosso, where are several indigenous peoples, facing the production of commodities and health outcomes associated to pesticides. For that, we resort to the socio-environmental determination of the health-disease process, organizing a matrix of indicators that emphasize the choices and omissions of the State in environmental issues, incorporating historicity in the processes of illness. The impacts of the agricultural commodities chain and exposures by pesticides in indigenous territories are an intersectoral problem that is linked to the violation of basic social rights, such as the right to land, health, and food and nutritional security. The responses must be considered in an articulated perspective between the economic, political, environmental, and health sectors, with participation and decision by the indigenous population in the stages of the processes.