This article adopts a hermeneutical and critical approach, in order to examine the importance of the conditions making possible and legitimizing communications practices aiming to evaluate the Family Health Strategy. It is the participatory nature of the strategy that enables it to establish social networks and negotiation techniques aiming to achieve coherence between the autonomous judgment of each individual and the expectation of obtaining contracts and agreements for joint projects. The shared decision-making process is shown to be a network of relations that are always in tension, in which the success of negotiations may be hampered by asymmetrical power relations and unfair distribution of the power to make threats. This means that is indispensable that what is said and how language is used be called into question. In order to reflect on language as a construct in a given context, the article draws on the work of Gadamer, Habermas and Ricoeur. It aims to reaffirm the importance of intersubjectivity as a condition for decision-making, thereby helping to build up the training potential of evaluation in the area of health.
Communication; Participative planning; Program evaluation; Health evaluation; Evaluation