Abstract

CARTES-VELASQUEZ, Ricardo Andrés. Literacy in health: conceptual base and evidences in dentistry. MEDISAN [online]. 2015, vol.19, n.4, pp.562-570. ISSN 1029-3019.

If literacy in health is based on the capacity to achieve and to maintain a good health state interacting with the social field (health systems), the empiric evidence consists of demonstrating the direct relation among both categories. In dentistry, the literacy in oral health refers to its impact in the health of people itself or of those who are in charge of, for example in the binomial mother-son. At present several psychometrical tools exist to measure those 2 literacies, classified in: recognition and pronunciation of medical terms, understanding and control questions; but there are no validated tools in Spanish to evaluate the one related to dentistry. Precisely for this last limitation, researches are scarce in Latin America about literacy on oral health, which is equivalent to lost opportunities to improve the oral health of the Ecuador population

Keywords : literacy in health; oral health; public health; health promotion.

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