[Health and disease processes among institutionalized children: an ecological vision]

This article discusses aspects of health and disease processes among children attended in a child shelter of the city of Belém between 2004 and 2005. The data were collected from documental sources and through interviews with technicians of the institution. From a total of 287 children, 49.47% presented diseases, deficiencies and injuries when being admitted to the shelter, probably associated to the situation of poverty and negligence they were exposed to since they were born. During their permanence in the shelter, it was verified that the children contracted infecto-contagious diseases (42.5%) and manifested problems of emotional nature (18.83%) that can be related to the environmental characteristic of the institution - inadequate proportion adult/children (1:8) and overcrowding (75/month). The results allow concluding that the children's health conditions reflect the situation of material and emotional privation to which they were exposed when living with the family and during their permanence in the shelter. In this sense, the health and disease processes are discussed from an ecological perspective that recognizes the biological, social and cultural factors that constitute the family and the shelter as developmental contexts of the institutionalized child.