Adapting Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy for Health Literacy Interventions

Abstract

Health literacy skills have been linked with desirable health outcomes. The pedagogical approach of Paulo Freire provides a framework for improving health literacy among underserved communities and for raising consciousness within communities about the social, material, and economic factors that affect health status. This article provides a framework for improving health literacy based on the pedagogy of Freire. The authors provide suggestions for how health literacy interventions can be based on collaboration between educators and the communities they serve. The model emphasizes reducing health disparities through raising consciousness about the contexts that affect a community’s health status and through encouraging community actions to address contextual factors.