Abstract
The study that originated this article aimed to understand the representations of Family Health Strategy professionals and users about education in health. It was an study carried out using a qualitative approach and participant observation and interview techniques through content analysis. It was conducted in 2008 and 2009. The group's representation denoted ‘education’ and ‘health’ as assets of social, cultural, and historical value that should be preserved in the family and in society at large, anchoring health care on strategies that overlap the prescription of procedures and behaviors. However, health service professionals and users associate ‘health education’ to the conveyance of technical knowledge, which should be done by trained professionals. Prevailing in health education practices were prescribing healthy habits in the individual dimension; thematic groups focused on specific diseases or health conditions; the users' passive behavior; difficulties in adherence, and mandatory actions. All study subjects viewed the conveyance of knowledge and the prescribing of habits for individual self-care the prevalent ways of representing health education. Observed health education practices can be characterized as traditional health care practices.
Keywords
health education; public health; primary health care; social representations