Concepts of health and illness among students and teachers from public schools: a survey in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais State, Brazil

Considering the important role of the school in the formation of concepts and as a co-factor responsible for the development of attitudes, it is relevant to investigate what teachers and students think about health and illness. This information enables the verification of trends in health education at school, with a real possibility of understanding the multicausal determination of health and of stimulating helath promotion and disease prevention. On this basis, a study was carried out on the health concepts of teachers and students at four elementary schools in the outskirts of Belo Horizonte, where the authors developed a health education program. The data analysis for the answers given by teachers and students showed an emphasis on the biological and physiological aspects of health in their concepts. The most frequent response of the teachers referred to health as "physcial, bodily and organic equilibrium"(61.0 percent). Among students, the predominant idea of health was the possibility of performing activities (76.8 percent for 3rd and 4th grade students, and 41.2 percent for the 1st and 2nd grade ones), characterized by lists of actions or rules for maintaining health or avoiding illness. One third of the sample associated health with positive feelings and/or sensations. The data demonstrated an agreement of answers between the sampled investigated and North American schoolchildren, in contrast to those by the students from Rio de Janeiro, a fact linked to the historical and sociocultural characteristics of each place. The data also indicated that the majority of the students has a good level of cognitive development, broadening the possibility of working on more complex notions of health and illness, since the teachers can construct broader concepts of greater significance for their own life and the life of the students, which requires their better formation/information.

Playing and learning - Bate-boca, an educational game concerning schistosomiasis, AIDS, dengue and leishmaniasis

The aim of this study was to create efficient and motivating material for use with a population that is in the process of learning and not well informed with respect to schistosomiasis, AIDS, dengue and leishmaniasis. Educational material undoubtedly represents an important possible means of minimizing the prevalence of these diseases. The "Bate-Boca" game is an alternative to such material which can be of help in measures of disease prevention. Thirty-eight adolescents and pre-adolescents with an average age of 15 to 16 years played the game. Before and after they had played the game they exhibited a significant difference in their ability to answer questions about the diseases concerned when answers relevant to all the diseases were considered together (p ú 0.05). In terms of individual diseases, there was a significant increase in knowledge concerning leishmaniasis as judged by the Wilcoxon test (0.05). The students knew very little about this disease before the game. They showed a great interest in the game and a thorough understanding of its rules.