Qualitative inquiries into social representations of health

Concepts of health and illness have been a major topic for social representations research. Whereas studies on cognitive representations of health and illness develop a general, decontextualized schema of illness, social representations research focuses on the diversity of lay concepts of health and illness and how health and illness are socially constructed in different contexts. Two qualitative studies about the social representations of health are presented. The episodic interview and theoretical coding were used to study health concepts of nurses and clerks in East and West Germany and among Portuguese and German women. Results in both studies show different forms of awareness of health as the core of the health concepts in the various groups. Social representations theory connects these differences back to the political and cultural backgrounds of the study participants.