BOND-BASED HEALTH LITERACY IN THE AGE OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

A theoretical-conceptual proposition from Brazil to the world

Abstract

Health literacy has traditionally been understood as the individual capacity to access, understand, appraise, and use information to make health decisions. Although relevant, this approach proves insufficient to explain the subjective, social, and relational dimensions involved in meaning-making and health decision-making. Based on a theoretical-conceptual study with a qualitative approach, grounded in the systematization of experiences developed at the Brazilian Reference Center for Health Information (CBRIS) between 2016 and 2026, Bond-Based Health Literacy (BBHL) is proposed. It refers to a relational process characterized by the shared construction of meaning, trust, and care in symbolic interactions in which language operates not only as a means of transmitting information, but also as a constitutive element of listening, welcoming, and transforming the health experience. Unlike functionalist approaches centered on the individual capacity to seek, understand, appraise, and apply information, Bond-Based Health Literacy recognizes that health decisions are constructed in relationships between people, including patients, caregivers, and professionals. This process requires listening, sensitivity to context, recognition of singularity, and attentive mediation of the cognitive, social, and affective dimensions of human experience. In this model, health literacy does not constitute an isolated individual competence, but rather a relational experience sustained by mutual trust, reciprocity, and ethical responsibility. It is therefore recognized that, in the age of artificial intelligence, preserving human bonds constitutes a central condition for ethical, situated, and socially responsible health literacy.