[Policy and collective health: a reflection on scientific production (1976-1992)]

This study systematizes the theoretical and conceptual foundations in the field of Collective Health that have provided the basis for scientific production in the health policy area. The primary research source is the literature produced in two different contexts in this field, i.e., that of its emergence per se and the scope of the so-called Health Reform. The authors highlight the main concepts and theoretical references from the social sciences used in analyzing the health policy theme, identifying analytical distinctions, concepts pertaining to policy, the state, and health, and changes in the central categories from the various studies. Their analysis of this history indicates a reshaping of the theoretical frame of reference, giving greater flexibility to the structural determinism and macrosocial approach characterizing a major portion of academic production in the context from which the field emerged and thereby questioning the hegemony of the Marxist paradigm. In relation to more recent production, the authors emphasize the incorporation of new analytical references, thus providing greater complexity to the relationship between the social sciences and the field of Collective Health.