UNIVERSITY EXTENSION AND HEALTH PROMOTION ACTION: IDENTIFICATION AND DISCUSSION ABOUT REPRESENTATIONS OF HEALTH, DISEASE AND BODY IN HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS IN SANTO ANDRÉ, SP, BRAZIL

Abstract

This article presents results of a university extension action what happened in 2022, a partnership between Centro Universitário FMABC, Centro Universitário Fundação Santo André – FSA and  Fundação Santo André High School. The objective was to develop a health promotion workshop to understand the social representations about health, illness and the body of high school students in a region of the municipality of Santo André and to dialogue about these social representations. The following steps were established: bibliographical survey, reading of references and discussion, elaboration of forms of communication, identification, and analysis of secondary data on the population of the action, elaboration of strategies for identifying beliefs and representations, elaboration and execution of activities with the target population, analysis and feedback. As a result, a health promotion workshop was made by students from the following courses: Pharmacy, which had as its central theme the symbolic value of the medicine; Physiotherapy, whose central theme was the social and cultural construction of the body; Psychology, which developed the issue of mental health and pressures on students; and Occupational Therapy, which dealt with the representation and beliefs about everyday life and mental health. The interaction between students generated questions and surprise, causing a change in conceptions about the role they played in the activity, calling for the establishment of a more horizontal relationship and intensifying the interaction and exchange of knowledge. The action created the possibility of building collective knowledge and the deconstruction of a natural and certain reality, and the participants were able to see the autonomy of the other in this experience.