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The construction of Brazil's Unified National Health System (SUS) has raised a set of challenges for the health sector's administrators and personnel, including issues of work management and continuing education for health workers, in view of the financial, political, and organizational constraints in the process of changing the healthcare model. The current study aimed to analyze the process of formulating the Health Work and Education Management Policy by the Bahia State Health Department. Public policy cycle was used as the theoretical framework. The study analyzed data from institutional documents and records of participant observation by one of the authors. The results include mapping the governmental and nongovernmental stakeholders that participated in the process. The analysis highlights a series of problems in the SUS in Bahia related to work management and health workers' profile, taken as the point of departure for priority-setting in the State Strategic Agenda and Health Plan for 2008-2011.

This article discusses the limits and possibilities in the implementation of health promotion and surveillance measures, in light of the regionalization proposal contained in the Health Care Operational Norm (NOAS) adopted by the Brazilian Ministry of Health in 2001. The proposal is characterized as an opportunity to move forward in the establishment of micro-regional systems guaranteeing integral health care, in keeping with the operational capacity of the Unified National Health System in each Region and State of the country. The article goes on to analyze the contribution of various proposals for change in health practices for the development of health promotion, prevention of risks and diseases, and reorientation of individual and collective care as they are incorporated into the NOAS implementation process in various States of the country.

This investigation was conducted in order to determine the political and administrative context prevailing during the implementation of health districts in the state of Bahia, Brazil. The documentary review includes laws, agreements, and contracts at the State and Federal levels from 1987 to 1989. This period corresponded to the first phase of the State government after the 1986 elections. Information was also obtained from key informants and former directors of the State Secretariat of Health at the central level. We describe how the policy for regionalization by territory and population was formulated, and we review both State and national planning procedures, identifying the events leading to the decision to create health districts. We list the political instruments related to this decision and analyze the positions of the various actors in the Brazilian Health System in relation to this strategic choice. Brief comments are given about the difficulties faced by this proposal during the period studied.