Participatory research in public health: creating innovative alliances for health.

This article discusses alliances within local socio-sanitary space, one in which community sector and health sector actors, public health researchers and funding bodies meet. The discussion is based on the study of a research space made up of representatives of actors found at the local level. Both the minutes of the discussions of 12 meetings of the research team, and the collaborative outputs produced throughout the research initiative provide the empirical data for a qualitative analysis. The findings reveal a research space concomitantly constituted by aspects of "non-cooperative games" and of networks based on innovation-fostering knowledge exchanges, which can be viewed, from the perspective of a reflexive epistemology, as a tool for implementing innovative alliances in local, health-promoting socio-sanitary space.