Use of medicinal plants and socioeconomic evaluation of urban and rural populations of Sobradinho (DF-Brazil)

Abstract

It is known that the use of medicinal plants can improve health, and their study in Brazil is promising due to their floristic megadiversity, mainly in Cerrado, where several traditional populations live, and many endemic species can be found. From data obtained through interviews, this research recorded the medicinal plants used by 40 residents of urban and rural areas of Sobradinho (DF), situated in Cerrado, and evaluated their socioeconomic profiles. Rural women had a greater knowledge about medicinal plants. Most of the urban population had a full college education, while most of the rural population had not completed their basic education. Although the urban population also used literature, the main source of knowledge came from family members. The level of ethnobotanical knowledge was vast in Sobradinho and similar in urban and rural areas, where the interviewees cited 86 names of medicinal plants that corresponded to 126 species, of which 56.35% were native to Brazil and 43.65% exotic. All of the species were categorized into 48 botanical families, with Asteraceae, Lamiaceae and Fabaceae being the most cited, respectively. Although they knew many native species of medicinal plants, the population used more exotic ones, such as mint, lemongrass and boldo to treat conditions such as stress, flu and indigestion, respectively.