Psychology, Disasters and Environmental Racism: A Critical Review of Brazilian Scientific Literature

Abstract

This article critically analyzes the Brazilian psychological scientific production on emergencies and disasters, with emphasis on studies that engage with Primary Health Care in territories marked by high social vulnerability. It is an integrative literature review conducted in the SciELO and PePSIC databases, including national articles published over the last ten years. The analysis indicates that Disaster Psychology in Brazil remains a field under consolidation, characterized by epistemological disputes between individualizing approaches centered on trauma and emergency response, and critical perspectives that understand disasters as socially produced phenomena. The findings reveal a limited explicit incorporation of intersectional frameworks and the concept of environmental racism, as well as the relative invisibility of the Unified Health System and Primary Health Care as structuring axes of analysis. The study concludes that strengthening a territorialized, public, and anti-racist Disaster Psychology is essential for reducing vulnerabilities and promoting network-based care in contexts of risk.