This study assessed the coherence of the set of ideas behind the UNI Program, over three projects in Brazil, analyzing the relationship between Purposes, Methods, and Organization, in the light of Mario Testa's coherence postulate. The empirical material on which this paper was based consisted of bibliography on the UNI Program and interviews with twelve key individuals, "actors" who helped shape the process. These were classified into three groups: UNI Program Formulators, UNI Project Directors, and Evaluators. The data were edited, systematized and analyzed according to both analytical categories (determination, conditioning, collective subject and paradigm) and empirical categories (purpose, method and organization). The analysis evidenced an idealized view of the true context within which the Projects are made operational. Furthermore, it identified dialectically constructed lines of determination and conditioning, within the actual scenario of the actors, and in the relationship between subject and object, sometimes in a direction directly contrary to that which had been taken for granted during the formulation of the Program. The investigation also identified shifts towards change in the reality of the UNI Projects, whether at the university or within health and community services. The limitations present both in the theoretical functionalistic frame of reference adopted during the initial structuring of the Program, and in the limited importance granted to the lines of conditioning or determination that organizations issue, may be considered as the explanation for the Program's failure to attain full efficacy.
Public Health-Evaluation; Community; Community
