[Reducing the inequalities experienced by an indigenous community in Brazil: The social role of the university]. / Réduire les inégalités subies par une communauté amérindienne au Brésil : le rôle social de l'université.

The objective of this article is to describe and analyse the actions developed by a health promotion programme between 2013 and 2014 in an indigenous Kiriri community in Bahia, Brazil. One of the specificities of the programme was that it was conducted in the context of the extension activities of Brazilian universities. This programme illustrates the actions of extension, a longstanding social function of Brazilian universities and the value of involving the university in community health actions.Based on the action research methodology, the project was designed to stimulate reflection on the broader concept of health and its social determinants, developing the link between the various languages and cultures based on social mobilization around health promotion and to promote respect for cultural diversity. The programme's actions allowed production of knowledge concerning the living conditions of the indigenous community and a dialogue between scientific knowledge and popular knowledge, appropriation of existing public policies by the population, and also a change in the population's perception of health, extending beyond the biomedical view and taking living conditions into account as determinants of health.

[Nosocomial infection control in France: a socio-historical approach]. / Approche socio-historique de la lutte contre les infections nosocomiales en France.

This article argues that the emergence of nosocomial infections as a public health issue is the result of specific socio-cultural processes. An analysis of the French periodical Revue d'Hygiène et de Médecine Sociale over the period 1953-1988 and of the discourse of national actors in the fight against hospital-acquired infections demonstrates that the recognition of nosocomial infections as a public health issue occurred almost independently of objective criteria related to frequency or severity. It is suggested that professional and societal factors provide a better explanation of the emergence of nosocomial infections as a public health issue. Nosocomial infections essentially rescued ?Hygiene', a discipline threatened by the reorganization of the university-hospital system following the 1958 reform. Having entered hospitals, hygienists have had to compete with microbiologists also involved in a subject that has attracted an increasing number of actors from a range of fields. Beyond the development of a public health issue, a battlefield of symbolic fights is thus emerging.