Language, Literacy, and Health

This book analyzes language, literacy, and health as social practices, and the relations among them, with a focus on Brazil´s national health system. With the help of an ethnographic lens, the book analyzes several discourses and uses of texts, including multimodal texts. Language, Literacy, and Health: Discourse in Brazil’s National Health System analyzes language, literacy, and health as social practices in Brazil’s national health system, the Unified Health System (SUS), with a particular focus on the Family Health Strategy program. The SUS was established in the 1990s, offering free consultations, health promotion activities, and home visits by a professional team to the Brazilian population. Using research conducted in two different Brazilian regions, the Northeast and the Southeast, Izabel Magalhães and Kênia 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, analysis, and the authors’ ethnographic approach bring to light some issues with SUS practices, and the authors suggest improvements. This book contributes to the debate about language and literacy in health practices, in which patients are partly responsible for keeping well.