Paper short abstract:

The paper presents the role of anthropology in the process of development and promotion of Health Education, through the case of the Italian Centro Sperimentale di Educazione Sanitario (Perugia) and its connection with the Spanish context.

Paper long abstract:

The role of Anthropology in the development of Health Education after the Second World War is unquestionable especially in North America's health programs and mental illness. Its influence in Europe is lesser known. The set up of the Centro Sperimentale di Educazione Sanitaria in 1954, (Perugia, Italy) was a milestone. It established collaborations with similar centres in United Kingdom and Germany, and had a leading role in IUHP Conferences. The Centre had an unexpected influence in Franco's Spain through Adolfo Maíllo, a key figure of the educational policies of the 1950s and 1960s, as the head of the CEDODEP, a technical board which aim was to update Spanish school. It was a paradox, because the Centre's roots were in social-democratic and Marxist ideologies. From 1975 to early 1990s, dozens of Spanish health professionals received training in Perugia. Others received were trained through courses organized in Spain after 1980. This generation of health professionals had a significant influence on policy deployment of health education in some Spanish regions until now. The objective of the paper is to reconstruct the genealogy of this process from a double perspective: history and ethnography. We have used the rich documentation available in the archive of the Centre and interviews with some of key figures in it set, as well as some of their Spanish students. The role of anthropology in this process was very significant to the extent that introduced in Southern Europe an applied and new dimension in European Anthropology.