Public Healthcare in Brazil has tended to reflect major changes in the healthcare model. New tendencies point to the importance of actions being built up from their context and focused on specific communities. The objective of this study is to describe the meanings of health / illness as produced by community groups within the context of a Family Healthcare Program. Five groups had their single-session discussions taped and recorded, under the coordination of the first author. This material was transcribed and, coupled with field notes, formed the database for this study. The analysis described the meanings of the ideas on which new healthcare proposals are being based, providing visibility for the multiplicity of meanings and denaturalizing fixed lines of discourse on healthcare / illness. The final thoughts, developed from the point of view of social constructionism, indicate that healthcare practices based on the process of constant conversation and negotiation between all the social actors involved is a fertile ground.
family health; community health services; social construcionism