The building of collective health and health policies – contributions from journal ciência & saúde coletiva

Abstract

This paper aimed to analyze the contribution of Journal Ciência & Saúde Coletiva (C&SC) to the construction of the CH field, particularly in its relationships with the Health Policy, understood both as an academic discipline and as a scope of practice. We reviewed papers published between 1996 and 2019 in the C&SC. Titles and abstracts of the 397 documents on health policies were read to measure the magnitude and identify the main themes and theoretical-methodological approaches. Thirty-five documents were selected and read in full among the 142 revised ones to investigate the Journal’s contribution to CH’s construction. The analysis was based on Bourdieu’s sociology. It revealed that C&SC was established as a space for the construction of CH in multiple dimensions, particularly concerning the reflexivity on the field. Specifically, concerning the Health Policy, despite the small percentage of documents on the issue (6.8%), it encompassed the different meanings of this subject for the field. The authors discuss the possible relationships between the characteristics identified and the historical process of incorporating this subject in the various areas of CH.