Intersectionality of gender, race, social vulnerability and barriers to healthcare access: a study on the lives of people with HIV/AIDS

Abstract

The article aimed to analyze the barriers and access to health and the processes of intersectionality of gender, race and social vulnerability in the lives of people with HIV/AIDS. This is an exploratory qualitative study that used semi-structured interviews as a way of producing data for analysis. The study was carried out in a municipal specialized care service in a capital in the Northeast of Brazil, which is responsible for the care of people living with HIV/AIDS, people with other Sexually Transmitted Infections and Viral Hepatitis, the study sample was composed of users monitored by the service, through saturation of responses, totaling 12 participants. In the analysis, two thematic categories were constructed. In general, the paths taken by these users, mainly related to the ways of producing care in the city studied, are understood as cycles surrounded by barriers and tortuous paths that occur daily, which produce deleterious effects for comprehensive care, and have as an element structuring that interferes with care, the intersectionality of gender, race and social vulnerability. Therefore, it is necessary to discuss the possibility of building transformations in acting and thinking that are socially structured so that new forms of care production relations are structured in which there is no exploitation or subordination of living beings, considering singularities, and therefore, health needs.