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Thesis (PhD(Education))--University of South Australia, 2018. Includes bibliographical references (pages 216-229) In an Atlantic Canadian province, members of community health boards (who are citizens of local communities) have a legislated mandate to make recommendations to health planners and policy-makers of the District Health Authorities (DHA), and ultimately, government officials that respond to community health needs. This research study and dissertation were undertaken to understand the health-care priority-setting of the members of two community health boards. A qualitative case study was used to (1) describe and explain how and why the board members set their priorities, (2) determine what contexts bound or circumscribed their priority-setting, (3) compare the approach to priority-setting with the research literature and theoretical ideas on practical reasoning, and (4) explore implications of the findings which, in turn, have potential to lead to additional approaches that could enhance members’ fulfillment of their legislated mandate. The data results were analyzed using the Yin (2003) pattern-matching technique in addition to theoretical ideas of practical reasoning, among others, including the notion of acting as a steward.