Youth empowerment in health: a theoretical structure of literacy practices

To develop a theoretical structure on literacy practices committed to health empowerment, based on the understanding of school adolescents and members of a Quilombola community in the State of Pernambuco, Brazil.

Method:

Interpretative analysis, based on the assumptions of the Grounded Theory and Symbolic Interactionism. For data collection, Culture Circles were conducted with 18 adolescents from October 2020 to August 2021.

Results:

The theoretical archetype is structured based on the recognition of vulnerable youth context, and the development of potential through collective relations built by dialogue, trust, shared knowledge construction, and the use of technologies.

Final considerations:

The theoretical structure on literacy practices committed to empowerment through the understanding of adolescents runs through the framework of a substantive theory that culminates in a perspective of agency and recognition of their needs.

Descriptors:
Adolescent; Health literacy; Empowerment

IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE
In a scenario oppressed by the sanitary-campaign model or consumed by the capitalist perspective in the private medical-care model, the implications for practice permeate alternative healthcare models for health promotion, which support the epistemological basis in the social and behavioral sciences for freedom, and by giving adolescents a voice, enabling the exercise of citizenship with critical awareness. For praxis focused on health education and the application of empowerment, the following actions are necessary:
In planning health literacy interventions, promote the student as the subject and protagonist of their own teaching/learning process;
Implement educational strategies mediated by participatory and questioning teaching approaches;
Demystify power relations for a horizontal relationship with empowering educational strategies grounded on dialogue as a strengthening tool for social justice and a culture of peace;
Health promotion and ongoing training strategies that stimulate interest of healthcare professionals as promoters of educational practices in reflection and reconstruction according to the representation of adolescents in society;
Understand the singularities, weaknesses, historical-cultural context, learning limitations and potential of this audience, to then address the health situation critically and propose shared construction that promotes the desire for emancipation;
Build on the needs of adolescents and ensure contextualization with an intertwining of popular and scientific knowledge;
Promote empowerment through health literacy promotion for priority actions for the most vulnerable;
Develop health literacy interventions involving methodologies aimed at a learning model that empowers adolescents to face vulnerabilities and achieve liberation;
Recognize empowerment as the essence of health literacy;
“Live history as a time of possibility, not determination.”1919. Freire P. Pedagogia da autonomia. São Paulo: Paz e Terra; 2021.

Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul. Escola de Enfermagem Rua São Manoel, 963 -Campus da Saúde , 90.620-110 - Porto Alegre - RS - Brasil, Fone: (55 51) 3308-5242 / Fax: (55 51) 3308-5436 - Porto Alegre - RS - Brazil
E-mail: revista@enf.ufrgs.br

Acompanhe os números deste periódico no seu leitor de RSS

[1] Corresponding author:
Mariana Boulitreau Siqueira Campos Barros E-mail: mariana.cbarros@ufpe.br