In order to understand audiovisual production on health and disease and the pedagogical effects of health education mediated by educational videos, this article analyzes the audiovisual production on leishmaniasis in Brazil. Fourteen educational videos showed the hegemony of TV aesthetics, particularly a journalistic paradigm with constant use of voice-over, inducing the fixation of meanings. Rather than stimulating critical reflection on the social circumstances of leishmaniasis, the videos' discourse and images promote a banal, non-critical, stigmatized representation of the disease. Individuals with the disease are subjected to visual exposure rather than being involved critically and sensitively as protagonists in prevention and treatment. The article thus presents approaches based on studies of visual and health anthropology, arguing in favor of an innovative approach to the production and utilization of educational videos in health education, mediated through audiovisuals. Health education should respect and engage in dialogue with various cultures, subjectivity, and citizenship, developing an audiovisual aesthetics (in terms of narrative and image) that fosters an educational praxis in the field of collective health.
Leishmaniasis; Health Education; Anthropology
