Schools Involved in Prevention, Promotion and Health Care

Abstract

The paradigm of health promotion implies a new conception of health that especially takes into account, the social, economic, and cultural contexts that condition it. In this paradigm it is highlighted the role of the school as habit and behavior forming that promotes health care and protective factors in relation to it. Three dimensions become relevant for this task: information, empowerment of the actors and the community. The way these dimensions intertwine is linked to the prevailing social climate in the school, which will influence the possibility that children and young people will have to be trained as people committed to their own health care as well as the others. This formation is carried out following certain conceptual axes that comprise: the idea of youth’s plurality; approaches related to rights, gender; diversity; the community and the promotion of health in a broad sense. The incorporation of health topics prioritized by the educational community in the institutional school project has proved to be a useful strategy for the work of this theme in the educational field.