This essay discusses the history of public health as a scientific and political field. We analyze the main features of the three areas of public health (epidemiology, social and human sciences, and policy, planning and management) based on a thematic study of congresses held by the Brazilian Public Health Association (Abrasco). The findings highlight a number of conflicting interests and paradigms among the areas, but also governance strategies to maintain the unity of field of public health that could be summed up with the phrase “dialectics of autonomy and integration”.
Public health; Epidemiology; Social sciences and health; Policy an health