[Shared security in the healthcare environment: negotiating the meanings of risk]

Some authors affirm that we live in a "risk society" and point through this statement at the awareness of danger that rules our time and legitimates the adoption of surveillance and control measures to guarantee security. Health services are not alien to this trend, though a biomedical instrumental view prevails consigning the individual to a passive position. In the light of Health Anthropology this article proposes a reflection about a kind of behavioural risk which forces the totality of professionals involved, to make negotiation become the central figure of the attention process. Shared security is a concept that makes sense within the encounter and negotiation space defined between the health professional and the patient. It assumes a relation based on dialogue, capable of overcoming the inequality among them. It refers to the adoption of participative strategies capable of diminishing the risks that arise from the lack of knowledge, the ability or will in valid and conscious individuals, not only for themselves but also for the others belonging to their environment. Negotiating the cultural meaning of illness becomes then the cornerstone of shared security.