This issue of Saúde e Sociedade has a peculiar characteristic because it is a published dossier about the regionalization of health in Brazil.

Dossiers are part of an editorial line of the magazine, where within its guidelines contemplate this form of publication, and are considered important for bringing articles that propose the debate on burning or short-term issues from the field of public/collective health. These are spaces that disclose research results that are linked thematically or, even a connection place for authors, as well as texts, to put together an agenda about any questions in an unexplored field or that deepen theoretical, methodological and conceptual concepts. Dossiers fulfill these tasks: to concretize, to form special and condensed projects, ideas and debates - in vogue or forgotten, or to address an agenda outside of the box - always with a view to enlarge the critical perspective of the debate and the expansion of knowledge.

The dossier on the regionalization of health in Brazil fulfills this role, it has special editorial, assigned by coordinators, to propose questions and identify challenges that are faced by academic professionals, researchers and teachers, as well as service professionals, managers and policy makers - a common agenda of the partners involved in magazine production: the USP School of Public Health and the Paulista Association of Public Health.

In addition to the dossier, however, this issue of Saúde e Sociedade brings regular articles that express the thematic diversity of the area and nourishes its subjects, researchers, teachers, undergraduate and graduate students, service professionals, managers and leaders.

The publication of some of them will reveal, still, the narrowing dialogue of the Brazilian public/collective health with those of other countries. Three articles in this issue are from foreign researchers and deal with the realities of European countries, more specifically, Portugal and Spain.

The presence of production in Europe has been growing in the magazine and, gradually, it has reached the Brazilian, whether as a result of the expansion and qualifications of scientific communication vehicles in Brazil, the linguistic proximity, or the similarity of health challenges that these countries have faced especially after the 2008 economic crisis that hit the world and that, in Europe, especially affected the most vulnerable countries, bringing them closer to the Brazilian reality. A phenomenon that reveals how the process of globalization approaches realities that were before radically distant and different from each other.

Other articles by Brazilian authors, make up the rest of the issue and bring topics such as: care, the activity of community workers and family health, sexuality and AIDS, the prevention and control of dengue, the aging and training of health professionals, and the challenges of health education; they all go through the routine and the day to day services of health care in Brazil, expressing the diversity of production of the scientific field.

Thus, this issue of Saúde e Sociedade invites the reader from different angles, to read articles in the knowledge that, when done; they have been circulating for a large part of issues under discussion today in the health field.

Aurea Ianni
Eunice Nakamura

Publication Dates