Health education and critical nursing training: four years of extension experiences on world heart day in Porto Alegre, brazil

Abstract

Health education, when guided by dialogue and critical reflection, becomes a space for emancipation and resistance to the inequalities embedded in the health–disease process. Analyzing its practices, particularly in public and interprofessional contexts, allows care to be understood as a political, ethical, and pedagogical act. The article was developed through a qualitative study, with a descriptive and reflective approach, based on the Standards for Reporting Qualitative Research. In addition, the investigation was grounded in the National Health Promotion Policy, Freirean pedagogy, and the World Heart Federation campaigns. Educational actions developed between 2021 and 2025 in community settings in Porto Alegre (RS), Brazil, were examined through field notes and participant observation. Inductive analysis revealed three interrelated dimensions: (a) health education as an emancipatory practice; (b) interprofessionality as a mediator of comprehensive care; and (c) critical formation as the structural axis of nursing praxis. Educational practices rooted in critical and dialogical approaches strengthen autonomy, foster protagonism, and reaffirm nursing’s political commitment to equity, citizenship, and social transformation.