Abstract

This article by Jairnilson Silva Paim, originally published in 1976 in the journal Saúde em Debate belonging to the Centro Brasileiro de Estudos de Saúde (CEBES), makes an analysis of the concept of "community", together with the use of the expressions "community health" and "community medicine" related to the proposal of integral medicine and preventive medicine. Its publication in Spanish in the Founding Texts section points at the historical reconstruction of a movement originated in Latin America as social and/or collective medicine more than four decades ago. In the case of Brazil, it has, as clear antecedents, the work of Sergio AroucaO Dilema preventivista: contribuição para a compreensão e crítica da medicina preventiva and Cecília Donnangelo's ones Medicina e sociedade: o médico e seu mercado de trabalho and Medicina e estrutura social: o campo da emergência da medicina comunitária. These three texts are the product of a PhD. thesis and free teaching, written in the early seventies as well as the articles we are publishing and others that the CEBES recovers in its 2008 special issue with the title Saúde em Debate: Fundamentos da Reforma Sanitária.