Environmental health literacy among riverside residents in the Amazon region of Pará

Abstract

Objective: To analyze environmental health literacy and its impact on the daily lives of riverside residents in the Amazon region of Pará. Method: A descriptive, qualitative study conducted with 29 riverside residents at the Cotijuba Island Municipal Health Unit, in Belém, Pará, Brazil. Data were collected between April and July 2024 through semi-structured individual interviews. The corpus was subjected to lexical analysis using the Interface de R pour les Analyses Multidimensionnelles de Textes et de Questionnaires 0.7/alpha 2 software, using Descending Hierarchical Classification. Results: A total of 552 text segments were identified, of which 488 (88.41%) were used, generating seven lexical classes, organized into three thematic axes, which pointed out knowledge for dealing with the environment, the relationship between the environment and health, and the leading role and socio-environmental responsibility of riverside residents. Conclusion: Environmental health literacy among riverside residents involves the meanings they attribute to the environment that surrounds them, the adoption of care practices, and access to information on the topic. This is essential for them to understand how their actions impact individual and collective health.