Abstract Health promotion is examined as a discourse present in concrete governmental actions such as the Brazilian National Health System (SUS), and built on some propositions: conception of the health-disease process based upon social determinants of health; advocacy for a better quality of life; and definition of key fields and strategies for health promotion actions. We discuss the emergence of this discourse and its presence in collective health and in Brazilian public policies. Some meaning interplays of health promotion between its progressive and also conservative/de-politicizing strands are problematized, as well as its communication/information strategies, in the face of its ability to transform the health reality. At the end, we propose to add to this discourse/action a perspective that takes into account the agencying of life and health and the crossings of illness and death, in the context of control societies.