Teaching of Health: Challenges and Opportunities for Reflection in Complex Contexts

The ways in which some citizens of our countries have interpreted and acted in facing the COVID-19 pandemic compromises the reflection on the role of schools in the knowledge related to health and disease. In Latin America, a biomedical approach predominates, aimed at modifying behaviors through norms, hygiene rules, and disease prevention; health is considered the absence of disease. The explicit silencing of social, environmental, psychological, individual, and collective relationships involved in health reinforces the biomedical model. This approach is inefficient because it does not contribute to the adoption of healthy behaviors or the construction of scientific knowledge, which is fundamental given the advances of denial and anti-vaccine movements. We propose reflective approaches articulated with scientific literacy of an interdisciplinary nature, which recognize the need to articulate knowledge linked to reality, focusing on the acquisition of skills related to the understanding and use of science, negotiation and communication, and the promotion of student autonomy to make decisions about individual and collective health.