Implementing public policy in a non-directive manner: capacities from an intermediary organization.

Setting: We investigate the capacities of an organization responsible for bridging top-down instructions emanating from a law on public health with the bottom-up realities of health service providers working on population-based health. This article traces the implementation of this law, which requires service-provider organizations to base their actions (planning, prevention, and curative activities) upon the expressed and non-expressed needs of the local population. We investigate a case in the province of Québec that took place over more than 10 years.