Health literacy in the empowerment of communities

Abstract

Health professionals use a higher technical language with patients without studies and common language with those that have university degrees. In the underprivileged neighbourhoods there are health programmes that include training processes aimed at the communities of low academic levels to understand the specialized language of medicine. However, health literacy is not only and mainly about this, but a learning oriented to the transformation of power relations among the communities and the health care services, as it is pointed out in some of the orientations provided by the international scientific community. The results of the investigation INCLUD-ED indicate proposals to promote the empowerment of the communities of vulnerable groups in the health literacy programmes. The basis of these orientations is to guarantee the egalitarian dialogue between the professionals of this sector and the end-users in order to reach a greater success in said programmes.