Territoriality and Health Policy: Contributions to Research and Action

Abstract

The significance of territory in health policy has been approached from different disciplinary fields without developing a conceptual body of work to register the complexity of the problems that exist at that critical juncture. This paper proposes to investigate the contribution that can be provided by a territorial approach to research and the practice of managers in primary health care, to throw light on the mutually conditioning relationship that exists in the two domains. This is a concept-based study that establishes links between the contributions from research on primary health care, the concepts provided by geography, and policy analysis. This approximation reveals two standpoints from which policies can be analysed: on the one hand the concept of care as a stage in a correlation involving differing notions of territory, and on the other, recognition of the fact that at the moment of implementation in the territory a process of institutional recreation at local level occurs where differing regulatory logic is put into play and negotiated.