Albuquerque MV. The regional focus in Brazilian health policy (2001-2011): national guidelines and the regionalisation process in the states [thesis]. Faculty of Medicine, University of Sao Paulo, SP (Brazil); 2013. The aim of this study is to analyse the regional focus in Brazilian health policy (2001-2011), considering the changes in national guidelines and the regionalisation process in the states. The theoretical framework was based on human geography (geografia nova) and public policy analysis (historic institutionalism), and the work involved methods including bibliographic research on the topic, secondary data analysis, documental analysis and interviews with key players in the regionalisation process in the states. The conclusion was drawn that in the ten-year period regional focus evolved in the sense that the health region has become the central means for addressing the territorial dimension of universalised health care and inducing changes in the policy, planning, funding, management and technical organisation of the Unified Health System (SUS), in order to ensure more effective State action and guarantee the right to health care. The national guidelines can be classified into three phases: "regulatory regionalisation", "live regionalisation" and "contractual regionalisation". From 2010 onwards, the strong association between the regionalisation guidelines and the health care networks tended to prioritise the networks' focus on SUS planning, making the idea of regionalisation more complex. But the ability to induce changes and ensure universalisation through the health care networks and regions relies fundamentally on the formation of the health system and policies in the states. The geographic situations that characterise the four major Brazilian regions (Concentrated Region, Amazon, Northeast and Central-West) allied to the form of political organisation of the territory create limitations and specificities for the planning and regional management of the SUS. Recent experience of regionalisation in the states (2007-2010) has shown different stages of this process, according to the contexts (historical-structural, political-institutional and state of affairs), the directionality (ideology, scope, actors, strategies and instruments) and the characteristics of the regionalisation (institutionalism and governance). The institutionalism of the health regions tends to be more advanced and its governance more cooperative and coordinated in the states where there is a stronger tradition of regional planning, the contexts are more favourable, regionalisation is prioritised on the state and municipal health agendas (and/or the agendas of the boards of local secretaries) and where the state secretaries play a key role in planning. Contexts that tend to favour the process of regionalisation of the SUS are more populated areas that are densely urbanised and modernised, with a high concentration of technologies, professionals, material and immaterial flows, equipment and public and private resources for health care.