The general aim of this article is to describe and analyse in a concise way the main institutional changes and political tendencies in the health policy field during the First Vargas Government, particularly during Gustavo Capanema's administration at the Ministry of Education and Health (19341945). One aspect emphasised in the article is the relation between the reforms on health and the changes in the ideology of the political regime established in 1930, indicating permanence and discontinuity regarding the previous republican period as well as the impacts of those reforms on public health in contemporary Brazil.
public health; State reform; Ministry of Education and Health