La responsabilité sociale en santé : évolution d’un concept. De l’implication individuelle aux enjeux de développement durable.

Context and background: The concept of social accountability in health (SAH) is emerging as a major challenge, at the moment when the health systems are more than ever in difficulty and when society as a whole encounters new events linked to a pandemic that forces our main preoccupations towards a necessary paradigm shift. Objective: This paper offers a brief retrospective of the notion of accountability, from that of social responsibility in entrepreneurship, under the light of the human sciences (philosophy, anthropology, sociology) and discuss how the concept concerns the core of the professional exercise in health. Analysis: How can the social and environmental preoccupations be integrated in the daily medical practice without overloading the already overburden of the health professionals? Several hypotheses are conditioning this process: one of which is the introduction of a systemic thought, making possible a transformative action, a commitment around the values, a co-management with all the professionals and the involved stakeholders. This hypothesis draws the contours of a broadened definition of the SAH, including all actors of health and correlated activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]