OBJECTIVES: to discuss the meaning of education and the promotion of health in the field of collective health, its planning and assessment by promoting health. Methods: a theoretical approach is defined for health promotion that indicates the meaning and results of health education that is to be developed. Some promotion indicators are identified among the existing ones for application at municipal and local levels, discussing their viability and applicability. RESULTS: the discussion developed from the regrouping of the indicators as follows: a) the objective conditions of life or structure indicators; b) the conditions of improving new structures or indicators of possibilities of changes and c) indicators of subjective conditions of health or of the desire and of the collective will. CONCLUSIONS: the development of educational actions in health represents strategy for the promotion of health. Techniques of education and communication guide the construction of the indicators that should indicate social sections that need education action in health, to guide and to execute the intervention so as to make the analysis of their effects possible.
Health education; Health promotion; Health status indicators
