The policy in question: the success of the São Paulo's 13th Congress of Public Health

Abstract

This article summarizes the main issues discussed at São Paulo's 13th Congress of Public Health, held in September/October 2013. It presents the context prior to the Congress, clarifying the discussions held for the definition of the subject, which recognized the growing exhaustion of political and management forms, showing the alignment of São Paulo's public health workers with popular aspirations manifested in the 2013 June demonstrations. The policy theme was discussed during all the Congress, sometimes in a conflicting way, other times in a convergent one, in the following nodal aspects: the tension between a project that aims at the public sphere and the private sector growth in health in a context of consumption and commodification or commoditization of life; internal contradictions to the field on how to produce health within the NHS, in the micro spheres of everyday practices of healthcare, or the macro spheres, which emphasize the state-society relations, state institutions in relation to society.