Health and development in the Brazilian socio-spatial background: An analysis of the national health conferences in Brazil

A debate about health and development has recently emerged based primarily on the inquiry into the political conflicts generated by the separation of economic policy, geared towards the economic and industrial framework of health care, and social policy, which focuses on social protection in health. Within the scope of the debate regarding development as domestic policy, a fundamental concern has come to the fore about the solid aspects of the evolution and current situation of specific features of each society, in accordance with their historical background and territorial base.  The main question posed, on the domestic and international front, is that the concept of development needs to be rescued and revised by means of experiences gathered by different countries, ranging from the implementation of policies inspired by the Welfare State to those inspired by the regulatory State. Such a revision is necessary for the formulation of a new concept of development and a new paradigm about the role of the State in steering development. An analysis of the content debated at the National Health Conferences (CNS) in Brazil, throughout their history, is highly revealing of how health policies are included in domestic debates regarding development and the uses of the territory. Meanwhile, the Conferences express a wider context than a policy of a specific government, helping to reveal more extensive content about the debate of the relation between health, development and territory. The analysis of the matters covered in the CNS clarify how Brazil has failed to overcome the duality between economic and social interests. A positive attempt to bring these interests together with a new perspective of national development has emerged, taking into account that the socio-spatial background of Brazil is impregnated with contradictions resulting precisely from this long history of a divergence between the meanings of development.