Health Education: an university extension program

Abstract

This article aims at presenting an experience in university extension held at the Regional University of Blumenau. This is the Health Education Program, coordinated by the Social Service course, with the participation of the Medicine and Pharmacy courses. Here the university extension is seen as a space for critical thinking exercise, contributing to the knowledge production, socialization and democratization process, the constant curriculum review and professional formation. It enables the existence of a link between the university and the social needs, resizing, thus, the university social role. The article explains how this relationship is expressed in the implementation process of the Program, involving different subjects in the three projects which are part of it, as well as its liaison with teaching and research. Its main axis is health education, to promote citizen participation of health service users in the discussion of their needs, social rights and especially the right to health and to the management its policy. Also, it aims at qualifying the training process of scholars involved, as it allows a critical reflection on the reality and enables the wording of investigative and interventionist proposals about it.

Key words – Health education. Social rights. Social control.