Health equity for homelessness

a critical review

Abstract

The notion of equity in health is manifested in modern societies through different ideas and operational proposals. Concerning homeless persons, equity dialogues with equality and justice to mobilize several applications in health: while the liberal conception of equity in health seeks to favor the health conditions of this population without breaking with the current mode of production, the critical conception aims to expand the conditions and health needs in the struggle for an emancipated society. With the objective of characterizing the conceptions of equity in health that are expressed in the scientific literature on this population, this study carried out a critical review of the articles available on online search portals BVS, PubMed^®, SciELO and Scopus^® databases. 1,716 publications were identified in the initial sample and 35 articles were included in the review after applying methodological procedures. The articles in this review were characterized in relation to the ideas and applications of equity in health for homelessness. All the articles included are linked to the liberal conception of equity in health, pointing to the dominance of these ideas in the literature on this population and the need for investigations from the critical conception.