Digital inclusion and health counselors: a policy for the reduction of social inequalities in Brazil

Inequalities in health conditions remain even twenty years after the implementation of Unified Health System (SUS). This condition burdens social movements exerting social control on the health care area with a continuous fight. In this struggle, the accumulation of political power is related to an...

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Published inCiência & saude coletiva Vol. 14; no. 3; pp. 879 - 888
Main Authors de Moraes, Ilara Hämmerli Sozzi, Veiga, Luciana, Vasconcellos, Miguel Murat, dos Santos, Silvia Regina Fontoura Rangel
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Portuguese
Published Brazil Associação Brasileira de Saúde Coletiva 01.05.2009
Subjects
Access to information
Brazil
Counseling
Education
Health care policy
Health Status Disparities
Information Dissemination
Internet
Knowledge
Political power
Politics
Social activism
Social control
Social Justice
Society
Brazil
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Summary:Inequalities in health conditions remain even twenty years after the implementation of Unified Health System (SUS). This condition burdens social movements exerting social control on the health care area with a continuous fight. In this struggle, the accumulation of political power is related to an increase in the capacity to acquire knowledge and information. This study aims at fathoming the inequality surrounding the digital inclusion of Health Counselors (HC) of different regions within the country. We have adopted the qualitative survey method, which employs the Focal Groups technique, with HC representing managers, services providers, workers and users, all from national, state and municipal levels. Four aspects were examined, comprising reading and writing habits; Internet utilization; the use of health indicators; and the role of information in the Council-State-Society relation. Results have evidenced the need to broaden the foundations of digital inclusion initiatives in the health care area, and to overcome the cross-sector challenge of linking them to politics and education. By using benchmarks of educational philosophy, we were able to outline a theoretical-analytical matrix as a contribution to understanding the complexity involved in fostering digital inclusion in the health care area.
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ISSN:1413-8123
1678-4561
DOI:10.1590/S1413-81232009000300023