The individual and the State as agents responsible for the production of healthy societies: a thematic analysis from the perspective of health professionals in Catalonia (Spain)

This article aims to analyze the meanings upon which health promotion intervention practices are based, and the consequences of these meanings in the identification of responsibilities in health. The passage of Catalonia's Public Health Law 18/2009 facilitated the development of the Demonstrative Project of the Public Health Agency, in the framework of which fieldwork for the Plan for Health Education and Promotion in Children and Adolescents in La Garrotxa (region of Catalonia) was carried out. In this way, 20 interviews with key informants were conducted. Through a thematic analysis, it was found that the State and the individual are identified as the primary agents responsible for the production of healthy societies. It was also evidenced that, in the articulation between the discourses referring to free and rational decision-making and those referring to the social, political and economic environment, different approaches towards responsibility are construed, with effects related to the potentiation (or lack thereof) of the State as a guarantor of the population's health in opposition to blaming of the individual.