This article presents the methodology of Health Promotion Groups, which were conceived as a means of contributing towards developing autonomy, improving living conditions and promoting health. The method is identified as a collective and interdisciplinary health intervention, consisting of a group process. It guides the development of attitudes and behavioral patterns towards continually transforming participants' health levels and living conditions. The Health Promotion Groups are identified within the context of the Sistema Único de Saúde (National Health System) as a means of surpassing the biomedical model. It stimulates the development of actions in which the positive aspects of health are emphasized, while at the same time it can serve to more effectively meet the demands for care for the elderly in health systems.

The coordinators acted primarily by means of the preventive model, without using technical and theoretical resources that allude to group methodology in the field of healthcare. The actions within the preventive and new health promotion models that were identified reveal characteristics that are grounded in, respectively, the ethics of oppression/subordination of users and cooperation/acceptance of users as free and responsible for their choices and consequences.