This study aimed to examine the definition of the National Health Promotion Policy in 2006 in Brazil, trying to explain the meanings and disputes in the formulation and its implications for the field of healthcare process. For this purpose, literature review, analysis of documents and interviews with participants in the discussion of health promotion network in Brazil were made. We start from a constructionist view of science, including the policy as a dynamic process that is different from the factors that influence the choices and positions of actors and groups. We identify some tensions in the process can be understood as dilemmas that the debate raises. A first dilemma presented itself in the debate around the promotion model, which stems from the polarization historically constructed between the regulatory perspective and emancipatory perspective. A second dilemma concerns the ownership of this discussion unfolding in bias between the broad and narrow, where the proposals impacting the collective are seen as committed to an emancipatory project and proposals geared to the individual are understood from the perspective of control. The third dilemma has resulted in the employment of the concept of empowerment without a thorough discussion of its effect on the construction process of this policy in our framework.
health promotion; health policy; policymaking
