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Abstract
The present article calls the attention on the importance of incorporating a new area of knowledge in the study plans of health faculties by integrating fields such as political science, public policies and public policies management. Starting from a health-disease process of dynamical character, influenced by a wide scale of social, environmental, economic, cultural and political factors, among others, and understanding the problem of health-disease as a social process, the need of a reconceptualization in the knowledge of health professions arises. Nowadays, it is imperative to assume other roles of social leadership in different areas; leadership is needed in the formulation, implementation and evaluation of policies that positively affect the well-being of citizens. These are public policies that also have a constructive influence on the health sector and that fix clear rules on behalf of the governmental authorities concerning the scope of goals of universality, equity and quality, explicit intentions of the general system of current social safety and of the general health reforms that are implemented in different countries. The topic of political science and its most real expression, public policies as evidence of the State's gesticulation, is nowadays a field of interest of many professions: economical ones, juridical sciences, social professions and certainly they must be in health areas. The field is also of interest in the investigation agendas in health systems and services, as well as in science and technology policies. It is necessary then, that curricular spaces are opened from the teaching, investigation and projection areas, in order to stimulate discussion concerning this kind of subjects. The article presents the basic concepts of political science; politics as a set of practices, facts, institutions and determinations of the government of a state or a society; its relation to public policies, understood as action programs of the State and the health politics; and, since this type of knowledge must be entered in the academic and investigative discussions of health professions, tools must be offered to future professionals so that they can become agents and leaders in the formulation, implementation and evaluation of public policies that affect the goals to improve the population’s quality of life.
