Language, Literacy, and Health: Discourse in Brazils National Health System analyzes language, literacy, and health as social practices, with a focus on Brazils national health system, the Unified Health System (SUS). The SUS was established in the 1990s, offering free consultations, health promotion activities, and home visits by a professional team to the Brazilian population, and of particular interest is the Family Health Strategy program. This book is based on research conducted in two different Brazilian regions, the Northeast and the Southeast. Izabel Magalhaes and Kenia Lara da Silva discuss language and literacy as discourse-a very important dimension of health practice-and different uses of texts, including multimodal texts. The research and analysis, and the authors' ethnographic approach, bring to light some issues with SUS practices, and the authors suggest improvements. The book contributes to the debate about language and literacy in health practices, in which patients are partly responsible for keeping well.
Izabel Magalhaes is a researcher in discourse analysis and literacy. Kenia Lara da Silva is part of the teaching staff of the Graduate Program in Nursing of the Federal University of Minas Gerais, in Belo Horizonte, Brazil.
Acknowledgments Introduction Part 1: The Ethnographic-Discursive Method, the Research Projects and the Theoretical Approach Chapter 1: The Ethnographic-Discursive Method: Four Research Projects in Brazil Chapter 2: Discourse Analysis, Literacy Studies and Multimodality: Health Practice and the Therapeutic Bond Part 2: Health Literacies Chapter 3: Contributions of the Study of Language and Literacy as a Social Practice to Health Chapter 4: Literacy Practices and Literacy Events in Health Chapter 5: Texts and Narratives in Healthcare Part 3: Evaluation and Discursive Representation in Healthcare Chapter 6: Patients' Evaluations Chapter 7: Health Professionals' Evaluations Chapter 8: Health Discourses and Practices on the Ground Part 4: Case Studies in Language and Health Chapter 9: Case Study 1: Health Professionals Chapter 10: Case Study 2: Patients Part 5: Social Change in Health Practice Chapter 11: Health Professional Education: The Education of the Nursing Technician and the Representation of the Unified Health System (SUS) Chapter 12: Making Patients Responsible for their Health: The Construction of Health Discourse in a Community of Belo Horizonte Conclusion References About the Authors
