The road to isolation of public health policy projects: Consequences of demarcating the project by its task, time, team and transition

Abstract

Public health projects differ from construction projects in that they also try to make an ideological impact, for example, inspiring more healthy eating habits or increased physical activity. In contrast to the traditional view on task, time, team and transition, as a way to show how various boundaries act to demarcate projects from its environment, public health projects need to be more oriented towards including an ongoing interpretation of the context and beyond the idea that projects are only influenced by its context. This chapter aimed to show why the objectives of public health projects have difficulties in integrating public health aspects into permanent organising. The field material is based on earlier studies and comprises interviews, observations and field note documentation to compare two primary schools in the municipal organisation, engaged in implementing the same project, with the same project organisation. The contributions showed that rather than demarcating policy-implementing projects based on the boundaries of task, time, team and transition, integration seems to be important in projects dealing with an ideological impact to understand how policymaking actors can interpret the different professional contexts as part of the project.