During the last 15 years there has been an increasing interest in Latin America to study the collective health conditions as part of and determined by the social, economic and political processes. The present article analyzes the origins of this current of thought, known as Latin American social medicine, and its main theoretical and methodological approach. Since the two basic analytical concepts proposed by this current are 'social class' and 'work process', some examples of concrete studies that employ these are given to highlight the type of study designs used and the knowledge produced